By Steven Wishnia

Dozens of retired city workers overflowed a Manhattan courtroom on July 6, as State Supreme Court Judge Lyle E. Frank heard oral arguments on whether he should issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the City of New York from switching their health coverage from Medicare to a private Medicare Advantage plan on Monday, July 10.

The judge said he expected to issue a ruling on Friday, July 7.

By Bob Hennelly

On this Independence Day edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we find Canada continuing to battle hundreds of forest fires in what is that nation’s worst wildfire season on record with 250 blazes still out of control consuming close to 20 million acres — the near equivalent of two thirds of New York State’s landmass.

By Steve Wishnia

New York State Attorney General Letitia James is suing the owners of four nursing homes, charging that they siphoned off more than $83 million in Medicare and Medicaid payments through a “related-party transaction” scheme where they channeled money intended for resident care to businesses they, their associates, or family members own.

By Bob Hennelly

Mayor Adams and the City Council have reached a “handshake” agreement on a $107 billion budget that restores some of the controversial cuts that were proposed by the administration as it grappled with the fiscal fallout from the pandemic, the nation’s immigration crisis, and the end of federal COVID aid.

By Joe Maniscalco

Union leaders backing the privatization of traditional Medicare benefits may appear oblivious to what they’re doing to the lives of municipal retirees, but do they understand what their doing to the labor movement overall? According to retirees fighting privatization in New York City — they’re going to “destroy labor as we know it” and it’s up to retirees to “organize and protect labor.”

By Steve Wishnia

Nurses at the city’s 11 public hospitals are finally reporting “significant progress” in contract talks with the New York City Health + Hospitals agency, their union says.

In talks June 23, the New York State Nurses Association said in a statement, both sides agreed to an escalated calendar of bargaining sessions in July, with the goal of reaching a contract deal by Aug. 1. Their current agreement expired Mar. 2.

By Joe Maniscalco

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a multi-part report following today’s New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees’ press conference held outside City Hall.

Sonia Agron, a retired EMT for the City of New York stood in a downpour outside City Hall this afternoon talking about how she and her husband — a retiree from the NYPD — are both “very sick” with 911-related illnesses and feeling very betrayed by all those trying to strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare health benefits and force them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program run by Aetna.

By Joe Maniscalco

This week, District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido immediately started calling City Council Member Charles Barron’s measure to preserve a half-century commitment to retiree healthcare “the single most irresponsible proposal in the history of New York City’s Council” — he forgot to include the New York State Legislature where Assembly Member Kenneth Zebrowski is responsible for introducing virtually the same legislation.

By Bob Hennelly

New York City Council Member Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) has introduced the legislation that’s been sought by New York City municipal retirees to preserve their access to traditional Medicare.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City municipal retirees rallying outside City Hall in support of new legislation by Council Member Charles Barron protecting traditional Medicare got more than they expected Thursday, when they learned New York State Assembly Member Kenneth Zebrowski is also introducing similar legislation at the state level.

By Joe Maniscalco

Members of a mostly Republican caucus inside the New York City Council filed an amicus brief today in New York State Supreme Court supporting municipal retirees seeking a preliminary injunction against Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to strip city workers of their traditional Medicare coverage and force them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna.

By Bob Hennelly

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and a coalition of 11 unions representing more than 32,000 uniformed officers have reached a tentative contract deal that raises pay 3.25 percent in the first two years, 3.50 percent in the third and fourth year, with a 4 percent bump in the fifth and final year.

By Joe Maniscalco

Aetna is one the largest private health insurance companies in the United States today, in the top 10, in fact. And this week, we learned the company is alleging to have handled 82 million Medicare Advantage claims last year alone — and out of that vast number, they say, “only” 3.4% were subjected to prior approval, with a mere 0.49% ultimately being denied. Whoa!

By Bob Hennelly

UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s working with Mayor Adams to push New York City’s 250,000 retired municipal employees into a controversial for-profit Medicare Advantage health insurance plan appears to be paying dividends for his union’s active members under terms of a tentative contract announced June 13 at City Hall.

By Joe Maniscalco

Is there a possibility — now that Comptroller Brad Lander has declined to register the city’s Medicare Advantage contract with Aetna — New York City Mayor Eric Adams will reconsider his plan to strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage? 

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander isn’t gonna help Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

By Bob Hennelly

Courtesy of InsiderNJ

Canada is on fire.

The smog fallout downwind has set off air quality alerts for 13 states south of the border with the worst air quality currently being reported in upstate New York from Syracuse to Binghamton. Toxic smog has extended down along the East Coast and into the Ohio Valley as millions of Americans are being advised to curtail outdoor activity if they have pre-existing health conditions.

By Joe Maniscalco

Former profit-driven health insurance industry insider turned profit-driven health insurance industry foil Wendell Potter thinks it’s possible to “at least begin to slow” the privatization of traditional Medicare, but that we need Democrats running both houses of Congress and the White House.

By Bob Hennelly

Last month marked the 21st anniversary of the end of the official clean-up in lower Manhattan of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and the fires that persisted for months after the collapse of the Twin Towers. In the years since, more people have died from their exposure to the toxic air than the close to 3,000 that perished the day of the attack.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is Part II of special two-part Work-Bites series on New York State’s nursing home crisis. Part I is here. 

If the owners of for-profit nursing homes are shuffling money around multiple related companies to conceal income and increase profits, what can be done about it?