Workers Flash Signs of Discord After Culinary Drops Doctors

LAS VEGAS -- The Culinary got a taste of its own picketing medicine Tuesday as a group of about 20 disaffected workers carried signs and protested the recent decision by the union health plan to drop several dozen doctors from its coverage network.

Culinary members who work at Mandalay Bay, Bally's and McCarran International Airport were among the people who gathered next to the union's Commerce Street headquarters, angry about the union's decision to drop some doctors from its insurance coverage.

They believe the union's health plan is dropping doctors who order tests and expensive treatments for patients.

"They don't want doctors that fight for you," said Mandalay Bay casino porter Valerie McBride, a 17-year union member whose physician, Dr. Khalek Abdel, was dropped from the plan, she said.

McBride, a casino porter, said her weight has dropped from 124 pounds to 74 pounds, and doctors have yet to figure out why.

"I'm wasting away, I lost 50 pounds, and after three years my medical records are this thick," the diminutive woman said as she spread her hands about one foot apart. "I want my doctor back."

The workers carried signs, hand-lettered on brown corrugated cardboard, with messages warning that they would stop paying their union dues if their doctors weren't returned to the plan.

A couple of the angry workers said they had been asked by their doctors to contact the Culinary and the news media and protest the plan's decision.

The Culinary Health Plan, which provides no-premium coverage to union members and their dependents, dropped "less than 50" of the more than 1,400 doctors from its network, Culinary Political Director Glen Arnodo said.

Arnodo invited the workers to meet privately with him to express their grievances, but they declined.

He said the decisions about which doctors to drop were aided by an independent review committee that evaluated doctors based on a wide range of criteria, including medical specialty, geographic overlap and complaints.

"People with private health plans face the loss of doctors all the time," Arnodo said. "This is the first time we've had to drop doctors, and it's less than 3 percent. These are union members, and they're angry. I empathize with them. They lost their doctors."

Arnodo said a couple of union members had talked to him about their frustration over the plan's decision to drop their doctor.

"I understand," he said. "If it was my doctor I'd probably feel the same way."

But the Culinary plan is one of only 4 percent of all U.S. health plans that offer coverage to workers and their dependents with no premiums deducted from their paychecks, he said.

The Culinary last year focused its contract negotiations on maintaining the no-premium status of its health plan. The casinos were trying to pass along some of their increasing health care costs to workers by getting union employees to pick up part of their health insurance premiums.

The union negotiated new contracts where almost all of the extra $3.23 1/2 per hour worked to be paid by Strip casinos by the final year of the new five-year pacts, and the $2.20 per hour to be paid by downtown properties by the final year, will be used to replenish the union's depleted health and welfare fund, which provides workers' health-care benefits, leaving little or nothing for wage hikes.

Mandalay Bay casino porter Frank Simon said his doctor wasn't cut from the plan, but he's upset nonetheless.

"Bottom line, I didn't lose my doctor, but we gave up years of wage increases for health care last year, and now we're giving up our doctors," Simon said. "What's next?"

One Bally's worker who didn't want to be named said she and others plan to stop paying their $32.50 monthly dues and to bring up the matter at the union's next general membership meeting.

"If people don't pay their dues, that'll get their attention," she said.

Arnodo said the union has to constantly fight to cut costs to keep the health plan strong, citing a new pharmacy that offers free prescriptions to members as a way to curb the use of high-cost, brand-name prescriptions by substituting generics or low-cost drugs.

"There's something wrong with the health-care system when you can save money by giving away something for free," Arnodo said.

Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor issued a statement that said the physician changes were done in the most limited way possible.

"The Culinary Health Fund has been able to retain its free individual and full-family health insurance by making strategic cost-saving decisions that retain quality while at the same time keeping costs down," Taylor wrote.