By Joe Maniscalco

A couple of weeks ago, Marianne Pizzitola, head of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR], approached CWA Local 1180 President Gloria Middleton during a union rally outside City Hall and asked if the two could talk about the ongoing campaign to privatize municipal healthcare.

“I really don’t have time,” Middleton responded.

“I know you don’t, now…but I’d like to be able to talk to you,” Pizzitola tried before being shut down right there on the sidewalk. You can see the whole encounter here.

This, of course, was hardly the first time New York City retirees have attempted to have a dialogue with the people attempting to strip them of their traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan they reject.

Municipal retirees have actually spent much of the last three years seeking a dialogue with the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC], Hizzoner Eric Adams, and before him, former-Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Middleton is an MLC trustee. 

They’ve asked for meetings, requested hearings, and called for blue ribbon panels to explore cost-cutting measures that do not involve abandoning the City of New York’s more than 50-year commitment to cover the healthcare costs of its civil servants and subjecting sick and elderly retirees to the well-documented preauthorizations, limited choice of doctors, and denials of care associated with privatized Medicare Advantage plans.

And each time, they’ve pretty much gotten the same treatment Pizzitola was subjected to out there on the sidewalk a couple of weeks ago.

“When I see Marianne on YouTube and this information that she puts out there…and attacking the [Municipal Labor Committee] — the tactics that they use to try to take away the reputation of the MLC — that's not somebody I want to talk to,” Middleton told Work-Bites when we spoke to her recently. 

Middleton continued, “First of all, listen and stop accusing people of saying that they don't understand; they have no knowledge of what's really going on; and that they're being lied to and all of that. That means that you're not open to listening — you have your opinion and you're not changing it.”

Pizzitola, a retired EMS worker who also serves as president of the FDNY EMS Retirees, has, indeed, been extremely adept at using every social media tool available to oppose the Medicare Advantage push.

But hold on, how does challenging the positions of a very powerful organization and its leadership with well-reasoned and thought out arguements amount to “attacking?”

As Work-Bites has reported earlier, there are members within the MLC itself who are adamantly opposed to their organization’s ongoing campaign to push retirees into what they also insist is an inferior Medicare Advantage plan.

And when reminded that Pizzitola is not the only head of a retiree organization requesting a dialogue with the mayor and the MLC about the plan to privatize retiree health care — Middleton told Work-Bites, “I can't make that decision of who talks to who.”

“I’m just saying, for me personally, when you make an attack and you're spreading a lot of misinformation and accusing a leader of not knowing what they're doing — what discussion do I need to have with you?” she added. 

This unwillingness to involve the people most immediately impacted by privatizing municipal health care is something Work-Bites has repeatedly documented.

One of the most recent examples came last month, when a frustrated Mayor Adams rebuffed retiree concerns at a public meeting in Brooklyn telling a member of the Cross-union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC], “I’ve heard from all of you — I’ve heard it over and over.”

Just prior to that, City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa [D-10th District], chair of the Committee on Civil Service & Labor, openly admitted she will not hold a committee hearing on pending City Council legislation aimed at safeguarding retirees’ traditional Medicare benefits — because Speaker Adrienne Adams  [D-28th District] doesn’t want one.

Intro. 1099 still has fewer than 20 City Council members signed on as cosponsors.

“The decision was made that we need to do what we need to do as far as collective bargaining rights to make sure that we cover our retirees,” Middleton also told Work-Bites.

The MLC, according to Middleton, has attempted to “mirror” the existing senior care plan and “make it better than what it was” — while also "trying to deal with what we’re going to do with the actives.”

“The intricacies that you have to go through with the health insurance companies — it’s beyond what the everyday retiree would understand,” Middleton said. “We have been bargaining for health care for the retirees for 40 years to make sure they have the best plan possible — and for now to say that the MLC is doing something contrary to hurt retirees is just unconscionable to me.”

Fundamentally, municipal retirees opposed to Medicare Advantage and privatization — the very same people who have helped pull NYC through everything from 9/11 to Covid-19 and more — stress their unions stopped representing them once they retired — and that unilaterally eliminating their traditional Medicare benefits now — constitutes a broken promise.

Assembly Member Bill Colton [D-47th District], one of the initial cosponsors of pending statewide legislation also aimed at protecting retirees’ Medicare benefits, says it goes beyond that.

“It actually was an agreement that was made between the first responders and the other city workers at that time,” the Brooklyn representative told Work-Bites. “They agreed, basically, to take less wages, less benefits at that time because they wanted to keep their health insurance benefits when they retired. They gave up something in order to get something back — and that is very disturbing.”

Middleton, however, insists the drive to privatize municipal health care with a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan does not amount to a broken promise to municipal retirees.

“People can interpret things any way they want to interpret them,” she told Work-Bites. “Through the 40 years plans have changed, okay? It has not been one fit for all those 40 years. We tried not to touch the retirees for many years as far as changing the plans to this level because we always did something different with the actives — you know….charging more copays…doing different things — just to make sure we didn’t touch the retirees.”

Now that the MLC is attempting to “touch retirees,” Middleton insists “it's not that we're not trying to keep them covered. That's exactly what we're trying to do, to make sure that they don't have to pay premium.”

But what about those nasty prior authorizations and denials of care that really keep municipal retirees up at night and have even helped convince U.S. Representatives Ritchie Torres and Nicole Malliotakis they need to team up and introduce bipartisan legislation in Congress to protect retirees from Medicare Advantage?

“Certain items will have to have authorization,” Middleton admitted. “But if you have already been diagnosed with cancer, or there're certain things that you take into the plan — there's no pre-authorization for that.”

So…just don’t get cancer or some other serious life-threatening illness after Medicare Advantage kicks in and you’re good?

According to Middleton, the MLC would have the ability to “monitor” its Medicare Advantage contract for a period of time “whether it’s six months to a year.”

“We’ve been burned before, trust me, we understand that,” Middleton said.

It remains to be seen if the five-year Medicare Advantage contract the Adams administration signed with Aetna back in March will ever actually go into effect, however. The courts in New York have so far ruled in favor of retirees and repeatedly blocked it from happening. 

“They have a certain judge that leans towards their cause — I get that,” Middleton said. “But that’s why the city is appealing to the next level.”

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