Seven-time Emmy-winning actor Ed Asner is suing the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan. On Dec. 1, Asner and nine other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit saying that the changes to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan discriminated against older actors. The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan responded by saying the suit was “without merit.”
In August, the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, which covers SAG-AFTRA members, announced that because of growing deficits, it would be making drastic changes to its health coverage. The changes include raising the income threshold of those eligible for healthcare coverage from $18,040 in earnings per year to $25,950. In addition, retired actors over 65 will no longer be covered unless they meet the $25,950 income threshold; residuals do not count towards the income threshold.
SAG-AFTRA Announces Changes to Health Plan—Members Object The changes would knock off an estimated 3,500 participants and 3,200 family members from the health plan (it covered in total 33,000 members, plus 32,000 of their family members in 2020). The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan did say that those who no longer qualified for coverage can be covered through COBRA, Medicare, or the Affordable Care Act.
The initial announcement angered SAG-AFTRA members, particularly because it was coming during a pandemic when many actors are seeing far fewer opportunities for work.
Asner, who is the former SAG president, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Los Angeles. Asner, who is 91 years old, and the nine other plaintiffs claim that they will no longer qualify for coverage under the new health plan. The lawsuit says that the changes “illegally discriminate based on age and violate the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967,” and are a breach fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. It also claims that over 8,000 senior actors will lose coverage.
The lawsuit is seeking financial damages, and demands that the trustees who make decisions about the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan be removed and replaced with an independent entity. The board of trustees is made up of 20 producers and 20 SAG-AFTRA union representatives.
In addition to the lawsuit, an advocacy group called SOS Health Plan has created an information campaign. In one video, a group of actors including Whoopi Goldberg, Mark Hamill, and Morgan Freeman decried the changes. “Why isn’t the union fighting for me?” said Goldberg. “I paid into the health plan my whole career.”
“They can’t get away with it,” said Asner in the video. “It’s criminal.”
Over 20,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding a reversal of the health plan changes.
In response, the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan board said in a statement that the lawsuit was “entirely without merit,” and without the changes, the Health Plan will have run a deficit of $141 million in 2020, $83 million in 2021, and by 2024 the reserves will have run out.
“The Board of Trustees has always taken its responsibilities very seriously, consulting with respected and experienced experts in connection with the Health Plan merger and the ongoing design of the Plan,” said the statement. “The complaint misrepresents the facts and omits material information about the diligence that preceded the decision to merge as well as the circumstances leading to the recent benefit changes. We will vigorously contest this lawsuit and demonstrate that our actions were fully consistent with our legal responsibilities.”
In addition, SAG-AFTRA itself called the communication from SOS Health Plan “a deliberate public and social media campaign spreading misinformation and fear.” It said that “senior performers are not losing their healthcare coverage; they will continue to have Medicare as their primary insurance, as they do today.”
SOS issued a point-by-point rebuttal of SAG-AFTRA’s statement, saying: “Seniors absolutely will be losing their SAG-AFTRA Healthcare coverage: There was a decades-old legacy SAG benefit and SAG-AFTRA benefit upon which seniors based their retirement, which assured life-long secondary health coverage for participants and their spouses over 65 with 20 or more pension credits. That benefit has now been eliminated completely.”
It also accused the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan of leaving union members in the dark for the past two years, saying that if members had known there were issues looming, they would have negotiated higher employee contributions into the SAG-AFTRA commercial, Netflix, and TV/theatrical contracts that were signed in 2019, which were “valued at billions of dollars annually.”
Said SOS: “The Health Plan Trustees knew for at least two years that the Plan was in trouble. When the Plan started losing money, rather than making incremental adjustments to better prepare the Participants and negotiate more contributions into the Health Plan, the Trustees shocked members with cuts, increased qualifiers, increased premiums and discriminatory actions.”
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