While Many Wonder ‘Where’s the Plan?’ NYC Presses Medicare Advantage Fight With ‘Marching Orders’ in Hand
Get in line: The march towards privatizing municipal retiree healthcare in New York City continues.
By Joe Maniscalco
The City of New York, like other places around the country, is plowing ahead with its long, laborious campaign to push municipal retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage program. The Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] — the umbrella organization representing public sector unions in the city — is set to present members with a “side-by-side comparison” between the plan retirees already enjoy — and a “summary of the proposed contract” on Thursday, March 2.
That’s a summary, mind you — not the actual Medicare Advantage contract. That’s because while MLC Chair Harry Nespoli says his organization is “moving close to finalizing an MA Contract with Aetna” — the actual program all present and future retirees will actually have to live with — remains a mystery.
Members of the New York City Council quizzed Ken Godiner from the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, along with Daniel Pollak and Claire Levitt from the Office of Labor Relations [OLR] about the Medicare Advantage contract during a marathon hearing held on Jan. 9, but were told “We’ll get back to you.”
“I don’t think anybody’s seen the plan,” New York City Council Member Gale Brewer [D-6th District] told Work-Bites this week. “I haven’t seen it. What’s the plan?”
These events mirror the experience municipal retirees in Delaware had last year, when officials there swore up and down that the Medicare Advantage program they wanted to replace traditional Medicare in that state was “exactly the same, only better.” When the retirees finally got hold of the actual contract — they discovered it contained over 2,000 pre-authorizations for medical procedures and medications.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration — eager to take advantage of supplemental federal monies and save a stated $600 million in healthcare costs — insists city officials have spent a lot of time considering other cost-saving alternatives to stripping municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage and pushing them into a Medicare Advantage program.
On Jan. 9, the OLR officers assured the public that city officials had “turned over every rock” and has been “very assiduous and very dedicated in finding different approaches.”
The Professional Staff Congress [PSC] — the union representing faculty and staff at the City University of New York and CUNY Research Foundation — has offered up a cost-savings plan of its own that involves using money from the Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund on a “short time basis” to help sure up the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund.
According to the plan, “PSC proposes that the City withhold $0.5 billion a year over 3 years from reimbursement to the RHBT for the actual cost of retiree health benefits in order to sustain the Stabilization Fund benefits for the next three years. Doing so while still providing sufficient funding for post-employment health benefits would give the City and its unions time to develop long-term solutions to escalating healthcare costs.”
“No, I don’t think [the city] turned over every stone, whatsoever,” Council Member Brewer told Work-Bites. “I don’t know if they looked to other cities or states.”
Last month, COMRO — the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations of New York City — sent a letter to the Mayor’s Office requesting a meeting with city officials and the MLC to “discuss how retirees can work with the City Administration and the MLC to address the financial concerns of the City while maintaining a premium free option for GHI/Senior Care.”
COMRO President Stu Eber says the Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit actually reached out to him earlier today and that they are “receptive and committed to responding to the substance of our position by the end of March.”
No one else in city government Work-Bites reached out to for this story wanted to comment. Before pressing Pollak further at the Jan. 9, hearing in an effort to clarify just what alternatives to Medicare Advantage the city has explored — Council Member Julie Won [D-26th District] stressed that, “As a city, we have an obligation to pay for healthcare.”
The Queens representative also pointed out that she and many of her progressive City Council colleagues came into elected office to “fight in favor for universal healthcare.”
But under the Biden/Harris administration, Council Member Won’s party is actually marching in the opposite direction on healthcare.
Dan Alicea, Special Educator teacher for the New York City Department of Education and a leading organizer with @EducatorsofNYC, an activist and advocacy community of public school teachers challenging the ongoing campaign to push municipal retirees in a privatized Medicare Advantage program,” sees it, too.
“They already have their marching orders,” Alicea tells Work-Bites. “Bernie [Sanders] electrified everyone — he was able to get a lot of folks to buy in on Medicare For All and single-payer. If you look at some of the rhetoric around 2016, 2017 — the AFT [American Federation of Teachers] actually supports Bernie’s single-payer plan. Then, of course, he loses to Hillary [Clinton]. Around 2019, you watch [late AFL-CIO President] Richard Trumka and [UFT President] Randi Weingarten make this shift to kind of align themselves with [President Joe] Biden and [Vice-President Kamala] Harris.”
The AFL-CIO has already partnered with insurance giant Anthem to provide Medicare Advantage programs to retirees union members.
“This is the way they are going to push for a nationalized universal healthcare,” Alicea says, “it’s gonna be through a privatized model.”
Council Member Brewer says she’s not crazy about privatized healthcare, but also says, “These retirees were promised something — future retirees can be another discussion.”