NEWS
By Sarah Bahr | Dec. 2, 2020
In August, hundreds of actors excoriated the health plan of the American union for professional television and film actors for changes that would result in some members no longer qualifying for health insurance, because they were unable to work during the pandemic.
Now, 10 participants in the plan are suing, in a class-action filing.
Ed Asner, a 91-year-old seven-time Emmy winner, and nine other participants in the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday objecting to benefit cuts and changes in eligibility requirements in the plan that are to take effect on Jan. 1. The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan and its trustees are named as defendants.
Mr. Asner, who is the lead plaintiff, is a former SAG president and a current member of the SAG-AFTRA national board. He will lose his coverage when the changes take effect because he will not reach the new qualifying earnings threshold, according to the lawsuit, which claims the cuts“wrongfully and illegally” discriminate based on age. (Members who are 65 or older will no longer be allowed to use their residuals income to qualify for the new threshold if they are taking a union pension.)
The lawsuit claims two counts of breach of fiduciary duty, and one count each of engaging in a prohibited transaction and failing to disclose information material to plan participants.
“Far less draconian and equitable adjustments were available for a one-time event like Covid-19,” according to the lawsuit.
DECEMBER 01, 2020 | by Ashley Cullins
Iconic Ed Asner leads the group of actors who are suing the SAG-AFTRA Health Fund and its board of trustees for allegedly breaching their fiduciary duties.
The SAG-AFTRA health plan is at the center of a putative class action brought by a group of actors who say premiums have skyrocketed and medical coverage is being stripped from elderly guild members under the guise of a COVID-19-related restructuring, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in California federal court.
The actors — led by the iconic Ed Asner — are suing the SAG-AFTRA Health Fund and its board of trustees for allegedly breaching their fiduciary duties. Guild members Michael Bell, Raymond Harry Johnson, Sondra James Weil, David Jolliffe, Robert Clotworthy, Thomas Cook, Deborah White and Donna Lynn Leavy are also named plaintiffs, as well as surviving spouse Audrey Loggia.
Since 1960 the SAG Health Plan provided coverage to all guild members and, according to the complaint, in order to raise the funding necessary launch the program "every SAG performer surrendered the entirety of their television residuals for movies made prior to 1960." Four decades later, those actors say they've been abandoned by their guild and are losing their health coverage.
by Eriq Gardner SEPTEMBER 09, 2020 6:27am PT
The Academy Award-winning actress files a scathing lawsuit against those running the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan.
Hilary Swank senses something rotten with the way her union's health plan treats women. In a scathing lawsuit filed Tuesday night in California federal court, she reveals she's been submitting claims for coverage for treatment of her ovarian cysts — but that in 2015, the Board of Trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan began refusing her.
"This matter addresses the shockingly antiquated question of whether the sole purpose of a woman, and specifically her ovaries, is to procreate," states the opening of a complaint after quoting The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood. "
What happened in 2015?
According to Swank, it was around the time the star of Netflix's Away began undergoing procedures to preserve her ability to conceive children.
"Seizing upon Swank’s choice to keep her options open, the Trustees pointed to an exclusion in the Plan for 'infertility treatment,' relying on the notion that the only purpose of preserving the health of an ovary is to procreate," continues the complaint." Despite Swank's, and her board-certified doctors', insistence that she was not seeking coverage for fertility treatment, but only for treatment for her ovarian cysts, the Trustees dug in their heels. The Trustees repeatedly said that there was no medically necessary reason to treat or monitor ovarian cysts other than for 'infertility treatment.'”
Through the action, Swank seeks coverage of ovarian cysts, which she says has caused her to suffer from extreme degrees of acid reflux, pelvic pain, cramping and fatigue. She's represented by attorney Kirk Pasich.
A spokesperson for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan couldn't be reached for comment.
JEREMY FUSTER August 24, 2020, 6:00 AM PDT
David Lander had been a member of SAG-AFTRA long before he got his big break as Squiggy on the classic 1970s sitcom “Laverne & Shirley.” But now, he and thousands of retired members of Hollywood’s actors guild are about to be thrown off of their health plan due to drastic changes being made to cut costs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that’s especially bad for Lander considering that he has spent the past 36 years grappling with multiple sclerosis. “People need to know how serious this is,” he told TheWrap. The health plan “has kept me alive, and I never thought it would disappear.” Lander and his wife, Kathy, are two of a dozen retired SAG-AFTRA members who told TheWrap that the sudden changes to the guild health plan — announced last week after the union’s health plan trustees reported a $141 million deficit for the year — have thrown them into a state of deep uncertainty that they may no longer be able to afford necessary treatment. Most asked to remain anonymous to protect sensitive health information. But the retirees interviewed have been diagnosed with a wide range of serious medical conditions, from cancer to debilitating...
BY DIEP TRAN | AUGUST 18, 2020 12:15 PM
SAG-AFTRA announced on Aug. 12 that it would be making major changes to its health plan that currently covers 33,000 members, plus 32,000 of their family members. The changes, which include an increase on the earnings minimum in order to qualify for health coverage, is projected to remove 3,500 participants and 3,200 family members off the health plan. A change.org petition calling for the amendments to be overturned is currently at more than 14,000 signatures.
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The changes to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan include raising the income threshold of those eligible for healthcare coverage from $18,040 in earnings per year to $25,950. Premiums will also increase with $375 per quarter for one participant, $531 per quarter for one participant and a dependent, and $747 per quarter for one participant and two or more dependents. And if a participant’s spouse has health insurance offered by their employer, they will not be eligible for coverage under SAG-AFTRA.
In addition, retirees will no longer be covered by SAG-AFTRA unless they meet the $25,950 income threshold; residuals do not count towards the income threshold. Those who do not qualify for the health plan can be covered via COBRA, though the income threshold for that is $20,000.
According to a memo sent to union members, the changes to the health plan intended to cover the plan’s growing deficit—the result of increasing cost of healthcare and growing demand for services. “Without restructuring the Health Plan, we are projecting a deficit of $141 million this year and $83 million in 2021 and, by 2024, the Health Plan is projected to run out of reserves,” the memo said. “We must prevent this from happening.”
By David Robb August 14, 2020 8:49pm
SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiators Say They Were Kept In The Dark About Severity Of Health Plan’s Problems Hard Choices To Save SAG-AFTRA’s Troubled Health Plan; 3,500 Performers & 2,800 Dependents Projected To Lose Benefits Next Year Under RestructuringHundreds Of Actors Sign Petition Calling On SAG-AFTRA Health Plan To Reverse Sweeping Changes To Benefits Coverage
Two members of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee that bargained for the union’s recently ratified film and TV contract said tonight that they had not been told during the talks of the severity of the problems facing the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan.
The plan’s restructuring is projected to remove some 3,500 participants and 3,200 family members from coverage come Jan. 1 because they can’t meet the earnings requirements.
Jane Austin and Jodi Long told a virtual town hall that they’d heard inklings of trouble for the health plan last fall, but had no idea that it was this bad. They also said that they believe the union’s members would not have ratified the film and TV pact had they known the Plan was in such dire straits. This year, the Plan is projected to run a deficit of $141 million, which comes after a $50 million deficit last year and a $48 million deficit the year before. The contract, which was ratified on July 22 by a wide margin, contains a two percentage point increase in employer contributions to the Plan over the three-year life of the pact.
By Gretchen Morgenson | Dec. 1, 2020, 3:05 PM PST
The actor Ed Asner and nine other members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists sued the trustees of the union's health care plan Tuesday contending that benefit cuts announced in August are age discrimination and a violation of federal law.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, accuses current and former trustees overseeing the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan of making improper benefit changes that are taking coverage away from almost 12,000 union members, most of them seniors, who have paid into the plan for years.
"They can't get away with this," said Asner, 91, in a video prepared to coincide with the lawsuit. "This is criminal." Asner, a former president of SAG, is best known for his role as Lou Grant on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
The SAG-AFTRA plan has about 33,000 participants, but only two-thirds will continue to receive promised benefits as a result of the cuts, the lawsuit said. The plan's changes also significantly raised the earnings threshold for health care coverage eligibility and eliminated the SAG plan's previous practice of providing secondary health care coverage for members with 20 years of vested pension credit, the lawsuit said.
Jeremy Fuster | December 1, 2020 @ 3:09 PM
Critics of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan’s recent changes have made good on their promise to take the plan’s trustees to court, filing a class action lawsuit accusing the trustees of violating labor laws protecting pension and health benefit plans.
The lawsuit, obtained by TheWrap, was filed on behalf of 10 SAG-AFTRA members, including Ed Asner, current national board member of SAG-AFTRA and former Screen Actors Guild president, and David Jolliffe, 2nd VP for SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles local, which has vocally opposed the health plan changes since they were first announced in August. The other plaintiffs are senior performers Michael Bell, Raymond Harry Johnson, Sondra James Weil, Robert Clotworthy, Thomas Cook, Deborah White, Donna Lynn Leavy and Audrey Loggia, the widow of actor Robert Loggia.
The lawsuit accuses the Health Plan of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by raising the earnings requirements for members to qualify to just under $26,000/year and removing the ability for retirees who took a pension to count residuals towards those requirements. The lawsuit says that nearly 12,000 SAG-AFTRA members, including Asner and the other plaintiffs, will lose their coverage because of these changes.
BY: ALEXI MELVIN 8/26/20
In the midst of a pandemic, SAG-AFTRA, a union that represents more than 160,000 actors and other onscreen professionals announced last week that they would be raising their health insurance premiums and tightening eligibility requirements for their members.
“They knew the health plan was in serious jeopardy 2 years ago,” actress Elizabeth Perkins (who lives with T1D) tells Beyond Type 1 exclusively, “But they didn’t share that information with the members as it would have seriously affected the vote in the collective bargaining table. I am supremely disappointed for every member, but particularly members that have a chronic disease or serious condition to contend with.”
Joining SAG-AFTRA is considered to be a huge step in a person’s acting career, because it means that they can now be cast in principal roles in “union” projects. Once joined, however, an actor cannot be cast in a non-union film and must pay annual dues to the union.
Effective January 1st, participants in SAG-AFTRA’s healthcare plan will have to meet a minimum earnings requirement of $25,950 – which was raised from $18,040 – and premiums for those who remain on SAG-AFTRA healthcare will increase.
“As actors, we have to maintain earnings to qualify for insurance,” Elizabeth adds. “So, to double the premium at a time when the industry is shut down is just cruel. For a Type 1 dependent on insulin – the most expensive drug on the market – it’s shocking.”
The minimum earnings raise is not the only kick for performers relying on their SAG-AFTRA benefits. Spouses of members will no longer be eligible for the plan if their current employer offers insurance. Recently retired members 65 or older will no longer qualify off of their residuals – and the new health plan will axe the out-of-pocket maximum for out-of-network coverage.
Some Actors Say Changes to SAG-AFTRA Health Care Plan Will Leave Them Without Coverage
by Stephanie Simon NYC 9:42 PM ET Aug. 14, 2020
Kristina Klebe is an actor who’s been able to find some voiceover work, at a time when most tv and film production has been halted because of the pandemic.
"I had actually booked a video game in January, then I booked another video game, so I've been working, which is crazy, I know, and I feel so so lucky," she told us.
But when her union SAG-AFTRA announced changes to the health insurance plan this week, she was devastated.
Starting January 1, union members will have to earn $26,000 a year to be eligible for coverage, instead of $18,000 a year.
Like many actors, Klebe struggles every year to meet the coverage threshold. She says with the change, she will lose her insurance.
"I also have a pre-existing condition. I'm BRCA-2 positive, which is the breast cancer gene, so I have to get MRIs and mammograms and all kinds of things, and I can't afford to change my doctors and lose my health insurance," she said.
In a statement, the union says, “The Trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan have taken a difficult but necessary action to address financial deficits facing the plan. The impact of healthcare costs that are continuing to skyrocket has been exacerbated by a global pandemic that has brought our industry to a standstill and dramatically diminished contributions to the Health Plan. In order to continue to provide high-quality benefits to the greatest number of participants, we must implement changes now in order to preserve the long-term sustainability of the Health Plan. “
By Ian Spiegelman - August 25, 2020
In the midst of a pandemic, the actors’ union is adjusting health insurance eligibility and hiking up premiums to stave off a big losses
Union members against massive changes to SAG-AFTRA’s Health Plan say they will sue to prevent new rules that could leave thousands without coverage if they go into effect as scheduled on January 1.
As Deadline reports Patricia Richardson, the union’s L.A. Local president, said in a virtual Union Hall meeting last week, “We have been talking to lawyers. We have been talking to government agencies. I can tell you right now, there’s some illegal stuff going on here. There’s certainly a lawsuit. Whether there’s going to be money for the lawsuit is a whole other question.”
David Jolliffe, another member of union leadership, told members that their legal options include claims of breach of fiduciary duty, mismanagement, sex discrimination, and conflict of interest. They can also sue over age discrimination, Jolliffe said, because thousands of retirees 65 and older will have to shift to Medicare, along with their dependents.
By noon on Tuesday, more than 16,600 people had signed the petition “Overturn the changes made to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan” at Change.org.
The petitioners outline several problems with the new plan, including raising eligibility from $18,040 a year to $25,950, doubling premiums for most members, and eliminating out-of-pocket maximums, even as many members have been unable to work since most productions were shuttered in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Union trustees counter that, without these sweeping measures, the plan is projected to lose $141 million this year and $83 million in 2021.
In an email to union members, the trustees stated, “We understand that no one welcomes the disruption of changing health coverage —even if similar, less costly alternatives are available—but it’s important to note that those participants who lose Plan coverage may still have good, affordable health insurance options.”
“No one is going to steal my retirement,” Sopranos actor Al Sapienza, a member since 1976, said at an August 14 Zoom meeting attended by nearly 500 members. “No one is going to steal my insurance. No one is going to steal my 6-year-old’s insurance. Our union failed us.”
by Sean Burch | August 15, 2020 @ 6:30 PM
More than 11,500 actors have signed a petition against proposed changes to SAG-AFTRA’s health plan as of Saturday night. The changes come in response to projected losses incurred as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with premium increases and stricter financial eligibility requirements set to take effect Jan. 1, 2021.
The petition, hosted on Change.org, was nearing 11,600 signatures by 6 p.m. PT on Saturday.
In a letter to members sent out on Wednesday, managers of the guild’s health plan said the changes are necessary because of projected deficits “of $141 million this year and $83 million in 2021,” and that “by 2024, the Health Plan is projected to run out of reserves.”
The health plan currently covers those making more than $18,040 per year. But under the proposed changes, SAG-AFTRA members under the age of 65 will now have to earn at least $25,950 per year to be eligible. Members over 65 who are not receiving a pension must earn $25,950 for the year, with at least some “sessional earnings reported; if so, both sessional and residual earnings are included.” It’s unclear how many members will be impacted by the earnings floor being raised.
by Dave McNary | Dec 1, 2020
The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan and its trustees have been sued in federal court by Ed Asner and nine other senior participants over the upcoming cuts in benefits and eligibility for the plan.
Asner, a six-time Emmy winner, is the lead plaintiff in the class action complaint, which was filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles. The suit alleges two counts of breach of fiduciary duty, one count of engaging in a prohibited transaction and one count of failing to disclose information material to plan participants.
The suit said the 91-year-old Asner, a former SAG president and current member of the SAG-AFTRA national board, will lose his coverage, even though he had more than $25,950 in yearly covered earnings with residuals and sessional earnings because he will not reach the new qualifying threshold by sessional earnings that goes into effect in 2021.
By Elaine Low Aug 20, 2020 11:46am PT
Heather Jones feels “lost, tired and hopeless.” Work has been slow for her and her husband, both actors, since the coronavirus pandemic shut down film and television production five months ago. Last December, their 4-year-old son Harmon completed a series of surgeries, chemo and radiation for alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, and is now undergoing physical therapy as well as routine MRIs, CT scans and bloodwork in the aftermath. His older brother, Win, has had therapy to deal with the emotional toll of Harmon’s illness.
The family is joyous that Harmon survived. But the fresh changes to their union-provided health insurance that the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan announced Aug. 12, raising premiums and increasing the minimum earnings threshold to qualify for insurance by 44% to $25,950 — in the midst of a global health crisis, on the heels of their youngest’s battle with cancer — has left them “shocked, hurt and angry.”
With production at a standstill, Jones says there is no way they can meet that new earnings minimum, which goes into effect in the new year, fewer than than five months from now. If they lose their union insurance, she will have to find a new way to pay medical bills that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“The threat of losing insurance makes me feel untethered,” Jones tells me. “Having a child with cancer is the worst stress; you feel like a balloon that will burst at any moment, so that adding this level of uncertainty and worry is excruciating. It could mean my son’s life.”
She is one of nearly 20 SAG-AFTRA members I spoke to in the wake of the changes, most of whom were blindsided by the news. Nearly 15,000 people have signed a petition to overturn the plan’s revisions; a virtual town hall event last Friday night ran for eight hours as more than 460 gathered to share their concerns. Many worry about whether they’re going to lose their health insurance in an environment in which few are working.
By David Robb
Opponents of changes coming to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan said tonight they are considering legal action to prevent thousands of participants and their family members from losing their health coverage when the sweeping changes take effect on Jan. 1, 2021.
“We have been talking to lawyers. We have been talking to government agencies,” said Patricia Richardson, president of the union’s Los Angeles Local and the host of tonight’s Virtual Union Hall – the second in a series of Zoom meetings organized by leaders of the union’s longtime opposition party. “I can tell you right now, there’s some illegal stuff going on here. There’s certainly a lawsuit. Whether there’s going to be money for the lawsuit is a whole other question.”
“We are in the process of figuring it out,” said David Jolliffe, a national board member and 2nd vice president of the LA Local – who Richardson described as “the Captain” of the meeting and the movement. He said organizers, with input from members, are looking at three basic options: legal, public pressure, and member education and outreach.
On the legal front, he said the options include claims of breach of fiduciary duty, mismanagement, sex discrimination, conflict of interest, and age discrimination – because thousands of retirees 65 and older will have to shift to Medicare, as will their dependents – even those who are under 65 and ineligible for the federal health plan.
Increases to eligibility, premiums, and deductibles were announced last week in the face of staggering deficits caused by skyrocketing health costs and the lack of employer contributions during the COVID shutdown. This year, the actuaries project that the Plan will lose $141 million – and that’s on top of a $48 million deficit in 2018 and $50 million in 2019.
Jolliffe said that grass roots organizers are also considering picketing the union and the Plan. He said a strike is out of the question, and urged fellow dissidents not to show their anger by declaring Financial Core status, which means dropping out of the union and losing their votes. “We are here to fix what we have – not to break it. We need to turn the ship around, not torpedo it. Let’s be good union members.” Coorganizer Shaan Sharma agreed: “The answer is not to dilute the pool of people who want to make change.” They also strongly condemned any talk of a dues boycott. “We need a strong union going in the right direction,” Jolliffe said.
Organizers heard from many of the more than 400 members taking part in the town hall — and about their concerns about losing their union health benefits in the middle of a pandemic, and their ideas about the best next steps forward. Other panelist and speakers included national board members Elliott Gould, Frances Fisher, Debbie Evans, Jodi Long, Joanna Cassidy and Olga Wilhelmine.
By Nate DayFOXBusiness
More than 12,000 people have signed a Change.org petition urging the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) to overturn recent changes to the health plan.
The changes include a cut in eligibility for the plan beginning on Jan. 1 and other alterations called "unconscionable" by the petition.
Furthermore, the petition points out that the changes are taking place mid-pandemic.
The changes were announced last week in an email explaining that the plan would raise the earnings floor for eligibility to $25,950 a year, an increase of nearly $8,000, beginning Jan. 1, Variety reports.
By Sarah Bahr Aug. 14, 2020
More than 8,500 people have signed a petition asking the health plan of SAG-AFTRA, the American union for professional film and television actors, to reverse changes that will result in some members no longer qualifying for health insurance.
The health plan said in an email it sent to members on Wednesday night that it would raise the floor for eligibility from those earning $18,040 a year to $25,950, effective Jan. 1. Premiums will also increase.
“The Trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan have taken a difficult but necessary action to address financial deficits facing the plan,” the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) Health Plan said in a statement.
At a time when film jobs are scarce and live theater is almost completely shut down because of the pandemic, many actors have seen their income slow to a trickle or disappear entirely.
“Every actor in America is stuck right now,” John E. Brady, a film, television, and commercials actor who has been a union member for more than 30 years, said. “Unless you’re Tom Hanks and have done a body of work you’ll continue to get residual checks from, you’re not going to be able to afford insurance.”
by Melanie Brook
In the middle of a global pandemic our union and producer trustees that comprise the Board of the SAG/AFTRA Health Plan have made the unconscionable decision to make the following changes to the SAG/AFTRA Health Plan:
-Premiums will see a huge increase— doubled for most
-Major increase to the required annual earning in order to qualify for health insurance: tier 2 insurance has been eliminated (everyone now needs to earn $25,950 in order to receive coverage)
-Eliminated the out of pocket maximum
-Forced retirees (the union's most vulnerable members) to give up their health insurance that they spent their careers earning plus their residuals no longer count towards the $25,950 needed for insurance if they are retired and taking pension.
-Insurance no longer available to spouses if their employer offers any kind of plan.
-Eliminated out of network benefits
These are just a few of the horrendous changes being made with barely FIVE MONTHS notice in the middle of a global pandemic when there is no work to be had. This is putting SAG/AFTRA members and their families lives in danger. We must put pressure on the health plan union and producer trustees to overturn these changes immediately.