NYS Senator Drops Healthcare Bill a Year After Standing with Retirees Fighting Medicare Advantage Blitz

New York State Senator Pete Harckham (at podium) stands with NYCOPSR President Marianne Pizzitola (r), other retirees, and surviving 9/11 spouses, last year in Albany. Photo/Joe Maniscalco

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By Joe Maniscalco

Last year, State Senator Pete Harckham stood alongside municipal retirees and surviving 9/11 spouses in Albany, urging passage of a statewide bill protecting them from ongoing efforts to strip their traditional Medicare coverage and force them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

The very same type of predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance plan, by the way, that Donald Trump and his cronies are attempting to make the default plan for retirees nationwide.   

This week, that protective legislative effort is dead in the water and will not go forward unless it is somehow resuscitated.

“The interests of the two largest unions and the NYS AFL-CIO, just threatened Senator Peter Harkham, the main sponsor on our state legislation S3607 so that he dropped our bill and it languishes,” the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR] said in a statement released this week.

NYCOPSR President Mariane Pizzitola later went on the organization’s YouTube channel and said, “What we have today aren’t real labor leaders. We have corporatists who are willing to get into bed with management to sell off retirees workers’ benefits to finance their own.”

Despite an unbroken string of 11 court victories preventing the City of New York from pushing 250,000 retirees and their families into a profit-driven health insurance plan, the heads of the most powerful public sector unions in town—District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, Municipal Labor Committee Chair Harry Nespoli, and UFT President Michael Mulgrew—continue to push Medicare Advantage in one way or another.

New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento, according to Pizzitola, also continues to back the privatization push, as well as efforts to sink S3607.

Cilento personally endorsed Harkham’s re-election last fall calling him a “fierce advocate for workers.”

“Nobody threatened anybody,” a spokesperson for Harckham’s office told Work-Bites this week. “We are gladly working with all the stakeholders.”

A New York State AFL-CIO spokesperson, meanwhile, told Work-Bites the claim that Cilento “threatened” Harckham to drop the bill is “untrue and ridiculous.”

“We have an excellent relationship with Senator Harckham and have deep respect for him,” the spokesperson said in an email.

A UFT spokesperson further told Work-Bites, “It is the responsibility of UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the union to protect benefits for retirees. Any claims to the contrary are simply false.”

District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido has already made it painfully clear, however, that elected officials siding with retirees in opposing the Medicare Advantage push in New York City will pay a heavy political price.

The union also announced its top picks for mayor this week, and none of the candidates who voiced their strong support for retirees in their fight against the Medicare Advantage push at last week’s mayoral debate sponsored by NYCOPSR at the CUNY Grad Center made the list.

Instead, they ranked City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams—known for her steadfast and strident opposition to Council Member Chris Marte’s own bill protecting municipal retirees from Medicare Advantage—as their number one choice to be the next mayor.

Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and State Senator Zellnor Myrie were ranked two and three, respectively. Both men were MIA at NYCOPSR’s mayoral debate on April 17. Both were also mum on the Medicare Advantage push at DC37’s own mayoral forum held in February, in which State Senator Jessica Ramos was they only candidate to advocate for retirees fighting to retain the Traditional Medicare coverage they were guaranteed. 

Mamdani, often portrayed in the conservative press as the “big scary socialist” hoping to become New York City’s next mayor, was also lukewarm about the City Council bill protecting retirees from the Medicare Advantage push, telling Work-Bites in November he supports the “spirit of the legislation.”

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and State Senator Ramos both reaffirmed their support for municipal retirees during an appearance on this week’s “What’s Going On?” Labor & Health Report with hosts Bob Hennelly and Marianne Pizzitola. Click and listen to the whole show below.

And while Harckham may have dropped his statewide bill protecting retirees from the Medicare Advantage push, Pizzitola has vowed to “fix it” and press ahead.

“If you are an elected leader we encourage you to stand up proudly and publicly for what is right and not be intimidated by those ‘leaders’ who lost their way,” this week’s NYCOPSR statement also said.