Leslie Poston has worked at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital for 13 years and makes $13.45 an hour. But, holding a folder about four inches thick with medical bills, she told the Pittsburgh City Council’s Wage Committee during a recent public hearing on the North Side, making ends meet is a struggle, especially when she can’t afford her medical care—which is provided by UPMC.
“I keep getting double-billed for co-pays. I pay at the office and then a few weeks later another one comes in the mail,” she said. “And no one seems to be able to explain how that happens.”
And it’s going to get worse—three weeks ago, Poston was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“It didn’t show up when I had a mammogram in January, so the doctors want to get on it quickly. So next week I’ll get two more mammograms, a CT-scan of my chest, abdomen and pelvis, then a genetic test to make sure my family isn’t at risk,” she said.
“So I’ll do six months of chemotherapy, followed by radiation, and maybe surgery. That’s three different oncologists I’ll see with $40 co-pays each time.”
Poston is just one of more than 100 people who work in service positions in the city’s healthcare industry who testified before the wage committee during two days of meetings, in Homewood Oct. 22, and on the North Side Oct. 23.
“Some of the testimony was heart breaking. You had people working for 35 years making less than $15 an hour. And those who work for healthcare providers and can’t afford to insure their children,” said Councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess, committee chair.
“These institutions might as well be plantations. They treat workers as sharecroppers—They have tax-exempt status, but then the taxpayers end up paying for the medical care they don’t cover.”
The Wage Committee’s goal was empaneled to investigate wages paid to service workers in the city’s largest employment sector and to improve the city’s understanding of current wages on hospital and service workers and their families and determine what minimum wages should be.
Others who testified, like Ed Jackson, said though they make decent wages, rising housing costs are eating them up.
Kenneth Brown, who after 26 years makes $19.60 as a catering coordinator for Allegheny General Hospital, said he came to support the service workers at UPMC who want the Service Employees International Union to represent them. Workers at AGH recently voted the union in.
“There’s men and women here who devote their lives to caring for others and they can’t make ends meet,” he said. “That’s just wrong.”
Burgess said he expects the committee to issue an interim report in a few weeks, and a formal document by the end of the year.
Poston said even though she believes her doctors are on top of her case, she is worried.
“I’m Scared—not just from the cancer but can I afford it? Will I get the full treatment?” she said.
“I’m trying to set everything around my job so I can work just to pay my everyday bills. My doctor’s fussing at me, but I need to be paid. Who’ll take me in if I get kicked out? It’s hard, but I’m going to make it. I’ve been making it.”
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