Members of the nation’s largest health care union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, are confronting questions about where their monthly dues money is going.
The organization is facing inner turmoil after a nine-month POLITICO investigation found that 1199SEIU President George Gresham has for years used the politically influential union’s funds to benefit himself, his family and political allies.
In some cases, Gresham bypassed the officers tasked with signing off on major expenses and had to request retroactive approval or pay back the union.
“Allegations of financial impropriety are categorically false,” union spokesperson Bryn Lloyd-Bollard said in an emailed statement. “Our expenditures are vetted and normal for an organization of our size and scope, and to suggest otherwise is a misreading and cherry-picking of our Union’s financial records or based on falsehoods.”
The revelations leave 1199SEIU, which represents 450,000 health care workers across five East Coast states, at a crossroads.
Members are in the midst of voting in an internal leadership election, in which Gresham is being challenged for the first time since he assumed the presidency nearly two decades ago.
Voting is unfolding by mail, with ballots due by the end of this month.
IN OTHER NEWS:
— The Trump administration will stop doling out federal Medicaid matching funds as a kind of credit for certain state-funded health initiatives, cutting off billions of dollars for New York in the coming years, POLITICO Pro’s Maya Kaufman and Katelyn Cordero reported.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the change in a letter Thursday to state Medicaid directors, saying it has “renewed concerns about the appropriateness of providing federal funding for these programs” despite parameters and guardrails put in place under waivers approved by the Biden administration.
Under New York’s amended Medicaid 1115 waiver, which was approved in January 2024, the federal government authorized up to $4 billion in matching funds for designated state health programs to “free up” state dollars for a healthy equity demonstration project.
— A recent survey of workers in the state’s consumer-directed personal assistance program reports issues with the new administrative system run by Public Partnerships after they were slated to receive their first paychecks from the company.
Caring Majority Rising, a disability advocacy group, surveyed 327 participants in CDPAP between Thursday and Saturday. The group found that 70 percent of the workers they surveyed didn’t get paid on time, and 72 percent of workers who were paid received the wrong amount in their paycheck. The survey also found that 45 percent of respondents still can’t clock in the hours they worked.
GOT TIPS? Send story ideas and feedback to Maya Kaufman at mkaufman@politico.com and Katelyn Cordero at kcordero@politico.com.
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