JodyCallahanMcNicholMy husband is a union carpenter. He has been a proud member of Syracuse Local #277 for more than 30 years. As a union member, he has a wage/benefit package. So, in addition to his weekly pay, for every hour he works, his employer sends another check to his union for health care, pension and vacation.

For more than 30 years, we have not paid out-of-pocket for healthcare. He always had more than enough hours to provide our family with medical insurance.

That is until the end of May. You can well imagine my surprise when we received a bill from the union telling us we had a balance due of $381. I called the union and was told the contractor was behind in sending in hours. I called the contractor, who told me they were working on it. Puzzled, I paid and started a game of wait-and-see.

In June, we had to self-pay $814 or have our insurance suspended.

Again, the union said the contractor was behind. The contractor, Daw Tech, said they should have it all straightened out soon. Then the bill to cover our family medical insurance for August arrived with a pay-in-full of $1,416.

My husband was hired by Daw Tech out of Utah, who was hired by Pike Corporation out of Rochester, who was awarded the SUNY Albany Nanotech job based on a grant from Fuller Management, which is a not-for-profit working under or for the SUNY Poly Nanotech, who received funding for the grant from Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. DASNY, according to their website www.dasny.org, is ‘one of the largest financiers and builders of social infrastructure facilities in the United States,’ and they, in turn, get their cash from the state Comptroller’s Office.

I peeled back the layers of this dirty, ugly onion starting at the top with the state Comptroller’s Office and followed the money right into a rat-hole of deceit, discrepancies and crap.

Here’s one version: Daw Tech was owed $700,000 and hadn’t been paid by Pike, (owed anywhere from $4 million to $14 million, depending on whom you ask). Pike had walked off the SUNY Albany Nanotech job in July because Fuller stopped paying because DASNY found inconsistencies in the paperwork.

Or Fuller found inconsistencies. I’m not quite sure because I kept hearing different stories.

On the other side of that is Deputy Comptroller Margaret Becker, who insisted they have paid out for every request made from DASNY for this grant while DASNY Communication’s Director Freeman Klopott disagrees.

“We haven’t received any money for this project from the comptroller’s office,” Klopott said.

“I don’t know why he would say that,” said Becker by phone Aug. 26.

At the bottom of it all is a hardhat family whose family medical insurance is on the verge of being cancelled because this one won’t pay that one who won’t pay the other.

No one seems to care that their irresponsible approach to this has caused one family in little Oneida some real stress and pressure. We are owed hours that equals money. We have had to pay out cash for something that is part of my husband’s pay.

And, today he received his vacation only to find he has been shorted a few hundred dollars on that benefit, as well.

Where we come from, I believe that would be called theft of services. He did the job, they owe him money. We are the invisible victims paying a hefty price while corporations, non-profits and Albany haggle with our future and well-being hanging in the balance.

Through all lies and deceit, inconsistencies and discrepancies there is one thing that every person I have spoken with have in common: They all have medical insurance.

Editor’s note: Jody Callahan McNichol is a retired journalist and freelance columnist; she lives in Madison County, Central New York.

By martha

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