NYC Retirees: ‘Lip Service is Not Enough - We Want Action, and We Want it Now!’

NYC municipal retiree Evie Jones Rich helps fire up CROC’s “Save Medicare” rally outside the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand on July 28. Photos and video by Joe Maniscalco

By Joe Maniscalco

Ninety-year-old New York City municipal retiree Evie Jones Rich stood on the pavement outside the Manhattan offices of U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in 90-plus degree heat Friday afternoon, and spoke for nearly six minutes straight about the need to save Medicare from increasing privatization.

Then, she and fellow retirees hoping to hand-deliver a couple of “Happy Birthday, Medicare” cards to their elected representatives, were quickly barred from entering the tony Third Avenue building.

No one from either Schumer or Gillibrand’s office would even come down to accept the cards from retirees pushing back against Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing campaign to privatize the city’s nearly 60-year-old commitment to cover retiree healthcare costs.

Work-Bites also attempted to contact both Schumer and Gillibrand’s offices following the noontime rally, but was unsuccessful.   

Gillibrand’s people later contacted CROC explaining how, apparently, no one was around to receive their cards on Friday afternoon — but that they are interested in setting up a meeting with retirees to discuss the privatization of Medicare.

We’ll see. The Adams administration has reportedly still not responded to retirees requesting meetings with Hizzoner since the mayor took office.

In her January testimony before the New York City Council, Evie Jones Rich warned how the “the transition to Medicare Advantage will limit access to the quality health care needs of Black and Brown retirees” and “further harm those who pay obscene health care costs to insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.”

"It’s time for them to stand up and be counted — lip service is not enough. We want action, and we want it now,” Rich told Work-Bites before she and her fellow CROC [Cross-union Retirees Organizing Committee] members tried to deliver the birthday cards to their senators. 

Ultimately, they had to settle for handing them off to the NYPD retiree working building security at the time. 

Evie Jones Rich, along with other New York City municipal retirees, were in the nation’s capital earlier in the week, too, hoping to enlist members of Congress in the emerging nationwide fight to save traditional Medicare from scandal-plagued and profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance programs.

CROC organizer Sarah Shapiro presents a “Happy Birthday, Medicare” card to building security.

A delegation from the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees did manage to score a meeting with Schumer’s legislative assistant and health policy analyst while in D.C., where they talked about how many of the retirees fighting to retain their traditional Medicare coverage — are the same people who were forced back to work in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 — and are now suffering from a myriad of cancers and other life altering conditions.

New York City municipal retirees, as Work-Bites reported here, heard lots of supportive talk from celebrity lawmakers including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and others, while they were up there on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) proclaimed that strengthening traditional Medicare and advocating for a single-payer national health insurance program should actually be a “litmus test” for everybody in the Democratic Party.

“It should be,” CROC member Julie Schwartzberg told Work-Bites on Friday. “We’re telling people that we [retirees] vote — especially, the City Council where there are so many people that support us and are not coming out and saying what’s in their hearts — because they’re afraid.”

NYC municipal retirees fighting to preserve traditional Medicare rally outside the Manhattan offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Last month, the Daily News’ Chris Sommerfeldt and Michael Gartland reported how Henry Garrido, head of the largest public sector union in New York City, is threatening to withdraw support from any New York City Council member who opposes Mayor Adams’ ongoing campaign to drive 250,000 former civil servants into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance program run by Aetna. 

So far, Intro. 1099 — New York City Council legislation that would prevent the Adams administration from selling off retiree health insurance to Aetna — still only has 14 co-sponsors.

New York Assembly Member Ken Zebrowski’s sister bill in the State Legislature, meanwhile, now only has 11 co-sponsors.   

If strengthening Medicare is a litmus test for Democrats — they are failing spectacularly.

“It is so sad, that in this country, private industry and insurance companies control the government,” Schwartzberg said.

Work-Bites also reached out to both Mayor Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to find out what they think of Rep. Khanna’s “litmus test” for Democrats. But we’ve not gotten a response.

“While all of us have been focused on implementing Medicare For All, the opposition has been effectively implementing Medicare dis-Advantage for all,” Dr. Donald Moore, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program NY Metro, said on Friday.

And despite continually losing challenges in court, CROC organizer Gloria Brandman said she expects Mayor Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] will continue to try and push municipal retirees into Medicare Advantage.

“I think the MLC and the mayor are going to continue to fight this with all of their attorneys, using taxpayers’ money — and the attorneys working for the retirees are going to fight back,” she said on Friday. “It could take a long time, but I’m hoping we win it.”

Municipal retirees — Evie Jones Rich — declared on Friday, are “the army Wall Street never imagined.”

“We’ve got bills in the Congress that are sitting there, and it’s time to move them to passage,” Rich told Work-Bites. “The call has gone out to constituencies around the country. This is now going into a national movement — and retirees are fighting back.”