How UPMC Puts Its Employees in Debt — to UPMC
*Originally delivered as a speech in 2019
My name is Nila Payton; I am an Administrative Assistant at UPMC Presbyterian, where I have worked for the last 13 years.
I want to share my story of how I and many of my fellow coworkers have become hundreds and thousands of dollars in debt to UPMC. UPMC is my employer, my insurer, and the place where I see my doctors.
Like many of my sisters and brothers, I work long and hard hours every day to keep UPMC hospitals running, so they can continue to provide some of the best healthcare in the country.
Last year I had my third baby. I assumed as in the past that prenatal care was covered only to discover that I was being billed for my prenatal care. While my son spent the first week of his life in the NICU, I was being billed every day.
3 months after having my baby I had to have my gallbladder removed and I was billed a $150 copay for the ER visit. This year that $150 co-pay went up to $200 for an ER visit. So between giving birth to my child, my ER visit, and a recent ER visit for my adventurous 5 year old, I am thousands of dollars in debt.
Something is wrong with a system where you can spend all day helping to provide healthcare to people and then not be able to stay healthy yourself, or keep your family healthy, because you can’t afford it.
UPMC knows full well how much they pay me. They know that me and my family depend on UPMC doctors for our care. And they know full well when they structure my insurance, how much I can afford and how much would be beyond my capacity to pay.
I was fortunate to qualify for Pennsylvania medical assistance because I was pregnant but that isn’t the case for many of my co-workers — and we shouldn’t even have to resort to State assistance. UPMC is supposed to relieve the burden of the state, yet when their own employees need help to pay for the medical care, they give us the run-around and have even steered colleagues to PA Medicaid instead. How is that relieving anybody’s burden??
I work hard to provide for my family, and I pay my taxes to do it. That’s why today, on tax day, I find it so ironic that UPMC gets to rip me and so many other Pennsylvanian taxpayers off.
I would like to thank Attorney General Shapiro for holding UPMC accountable for ripping off Pennsylvania’s taxpayers and failing as a charity when UPMC tries to lock people out of our hospitals.
Despite the billions in profits, massive tax breaks and ceaseless expansions, UPMC is reluctant to shell out a single cent to support the health of the workers that keep their hospitals running and instead pushes this cost to the tax payers, all so they can continue to line their own pockets.
Enough is enough! We are standing together to fight back for the health of our families and our community.
