Why are Public Sector Unions Opposing the NY Health Act?
Shrouded New York City municipal retirees hover around the "die-in" held outside Aetna's One Soho Square offices earlier this week. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Earlier this week, New York City municipal retirees donned chilling death shrouds and held a mass “die-in” in front of Aetna’s Manhattan offices at One Soho Square to dramatize their opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing campaign to force them into a Medicare Advantage plan—and to push the New York Health Act.
For them, the fight against privatized Medicare couldn’t be less political or abstract—it’s literally about life and death.
Many New York City municipal retirees who’ve spent the last three years fighting elected officials and union heads trying to strip them of their traditional Medicare benefits and city-paid MediGap coverage entered into the fray already suffering from various types of life-threatening cancers.
Still others have been hit with new cancer diagnoses over the last three years of struggle and protest—and they continue to fight on, too.
Municipal retirees are fighting to keep the coverage they were promised when they first signed up for civil service—and many say we now need a new healthcare system that doesn’t profit off of algorithms and AI bots delaying and denying vital care.
Megan Bent's father Gary died after being shoved into a Medicare Advantage plan that denied him the care that he needed.
“No denials, no AI, no Medicare Advantage,” Megan Bent told protesters gathered at City Hall Park on Sept. 30. “Medicare is a social system that is supposed to be here to protect us all—and provide healthcare for all. And we need to return it to that.”
Bent’s father Gary was a Connecticut State employee during his working life, a fact which underscores yet again, that the drive towards privatized Medicare is hardly limited to New York City.
In 2022, Gary Bent emerged from the hospital after undergoing surgery to address a bleeding lesion in his brain in a profoundly fragile condition, unable to walk or remember the family members who came to visit him.
According to Megan, her father’s neurosurgeon “unequivocally recommended” the 81-year-old go to a specialty rehab facility that could help him recover. Medicare Advantage providers denied the claim and instead forced Gary into a substandard facility where they repeatedly tried to kick him out and have him discharged. He was finally discharged suffering from bacterial meningitis—and immediately had to be re-hospitalized all over again.
Gary Bent never became strong enough to resume his cancer treatment, and died at home.
“He did not choose Medicare Advantage,” Megan said on Monday. “He was put on this plan.”
CROC members Julie Schwartzberg and Sarah Shapiro [holding banner] help lead Monday's march on Aetna's offices to demand an end to the Medicare Advantage push and to advocate for the New York Health Act.
Steve Auerbach, a member of Physicians for a National Health program [PNHP] and staunch advocate for the New York Health Act, says that the way New York City municipal retirees have been sold out and forced into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan highlights the need for a comprehensive, single payer healthcare system that the New York Health Act provides.
Originally introduced way back in 1991, the New York Health Act seeks to establish guaranteed comprehensive, high quality healthcare for every New Yorker—without exception. It has passed the New York State Assembly multiple times since first being introduced, but has continually died in the Senate.
The New York State Nurses Association [NYSNA] and the Doctors Council SEIU are both big supporters of the New York Health Act—but other public sector unions, or at least their leadership, oppose it.
“We would love to talk to the some of the public service unions that have been opposing it on what we feel are incorrect reasons,” Auerbach, a retired epidemiologist, told Work-Bites on Monday. “We’d love to have a sit down and be able to discuss with them what their real concerns are—and how we can meet them.”
Last week, a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers [UFT] told Work-Bites that the union supports a “national approach to Medicare for All.”
Ask municipal retirees and they'll tell you the profit-driven health insurance industry is killing them.
However, “At the state level,” the spokesperson continued, “the New York Health Act must provide the same high-quality healthcare our members currently have as well as be financially sustainable. So far, it is not clear how both goals will be achieved, and so we will continue to meet with the bill sponsors.”
According to Auerbach and other single payer advocates, the New York Health Act has already been augmented to address union concerns and would provide benefits that are actually “stronger than any union benefit” members may now have.
“We've already changed the legislation to provide assurances that any benefit that the public service unions currently have is guaranteed in the New York Health Act,” Auerbach said. “If [members] are not having to pay any premiums—that continues. You're covered if you live in New York and work out of state. You're covered if you retire to Florida and you currently have coverage—you're covered. All of that’s guaranteed—in addition to long-term care, and no co-pays, or deductibles.”
Auerbach further stated, there is “no valid reason for all of the unions to not support it. It has better benefits than any current union plan has, including long-term care. I don't really understand why the union leadership is not supporting it.”
State Senator Gustavo Rivera is chair of the Committee on Health and is sponsoring the New York Health Act in the state’s upper house.
This is a grim future many retirees see for themselves and their loved ones if they don't fight back against the campaign to privatize Medicare.
The UFT met with Rivera’s office in August to discuss the union’s problems with the New York Health Act. This week, a spokesperson for the union told Work-Bites those concerns have not changed.
Work-Bites has also made repeated attempts to reach District Council 37—New York City’s largest public employees union—for comment on the New York Health Act, but has yet to get a reply.
Retired New York State Assembly Member Dick Gottfried spent more than 50 years in office, much of that time spent championing the New York Health Act.
“There are more conversations then there have been in the past,” he told Work-Bites on Monday. “Whether that leads to movement…we’ll see. I think a lot of the retiree ferment about the Medicare Advantage issue has certainly helped. I hope our message gets through to union leaders and union members.”
Sarah Shapiro, retired UFT schoolteacher and organizer with the Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] told Work-Bites on Monday that her organization can only be hopeful because the group is “one-hundred-percent behind passage of the New York Health Act.”
New York City municipal retirees--led here by 91-year-old Evie Jones Rich--take the fight against privatization to Aetna's doorstep at One Soho Square.
“We can only be hopeful that once Mayor Adams is either out of office, resigns or does not get re-elected—that whoever is the next mayor will stop fighting the retirees,” she said. “What we really need is the New York Health Act. We need Medicare for All. And we need our politicians to step up and do the right thing.”
Up until now, Shapiro said, elected officials—at least in the New York City Council—have all been “waiting around to see what happens to our lawsuits.”
New York City Municipal retirees represented by the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees have three ongoing lawsuits in court challenging Mayor Adams’ ongoing attempts to replace their existing Medicare plans with privatized, profit-driven health insurance.
Hizzoner signed a profit-driven Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna back in March 2023, and then “deemed” the pact registered three months later after New York City Comptroller Brad Lander declined to do so.
“Maybe Mayor Adams is gonna be out [of office soon],” Shapiro continued. “We want him to stop using our public taxpayer funds to fight us retirees in the courts. How much of our taxpayer funds has he spent fighting us?”
The New York Daily News is reporting that Alex Spiro, the “high-powered celebrity attorney” representing Mayor Adams in many of his ongoing legal scandals is “known to bill some clients as much as $2,000 an hour.”
“The situation with the retirees makes the point exactly,” Auerbach added. “In that the unions were stuck with the situation of having to trade off negotiating benefits for their current employees by selling out their retirees. And the solution to that, frankly, is the New York Health Act.”
Not only would the New York Health Act get healthcare off the bargaining table and free up unions to focus on improved benefits and working conditions, according to Aurerbach, it would also mean everybody who isn’t in a union would have comprehensive coverage.
“Everybody would have greater freedom of choice of doctors and hospitals,” he said. “And greater security in that you always have comprehensive, guaranteed care, regardless of changes in life circumstances. You’d be free to leave the job you hate.”