March 10, 2023
File this one under “Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows.” Yesterday the Municipal Labor Council voted to support the Adams Administration’s plan to migrate the City’s retired workforce from Medicare to a privately run version called Medicare Advantage. The retirees were not pleased.
Dozens of them made their way up from Battery Park to City Hall to express their displeasure. Normally one would expect a coalition of public employee labor unions and the Mayor of what’s arguably the most Progressive American big city to come down on the same side of a privatization controversy, and that’s what happened here. But it wasn’t on the side one would have expected, given the issues involved in this instance. The public unions have a well documented record of opposing privatization because it’s a direct threat to their members’ jobs. They inevitably argue that privatization costs the public more and delivers less bang for the buck. Politicians who seek the support of Progressive Democrats, of which there are many here, are generally supportive of Greater Good government programs such as Medicare and fiercely oppose efforts to tinker with them.
But here we saw the Mayor and a coalition of public employee unions siding with a for profit Medicare Advantage provider rather than with a couple hundred thousand former municipal workers who served this city and paid dues to those unions for decades. They were promised that in exchange for generally lower wages than they could earn in the private sector they could count on a defined pension and medical benefit after they retired, for life.
Council Member Marte addresses the activists.
Council Member Christopher Marte, who represents District 1 in Lower Manhattan told the Gazette that he supports the retirees, many of whom live in his district. Addressing the crowd on the sidewalk by the City Hall driveway, he said the struggle isn’t over. “We won in Court, we won in the City Council. Now we’re gonna go into that backroom and tell them they’re not gonna touch our healthcare.”
Neal Frumkin
The crowd chanted, “Fight, fight, fight! Healthcare is a human right!” and held up a cardboard effigy of Mayor Adams. Neal Frumkin of Retirees Association of DC37 pointed out that his Org’s 50,000 members stand against privatization. Retired HRA employee Ana Jurabe summed up her opinion of the plan to move her and fellow retirees into the Aetna Medicare Advantage scheme. “It’s bullshit,” she told the Gazette.
She calls B.S.
Medicare Advantage schemes have been steadily gaining market share, thanks to aggressive promotion to seniors and add-ons such as gym memberships and limited dental coverage not offered by real Medicare. Additionally, they pitch lower costs to employers and, in this case a city, to entice them to switch. However the reduced upfront cost often comes with an increased one once they have a foot in the door. The New York Times recently examined the private, for profit insurance industry’s record of overcharges, upcodes, denials of care, kickbacks, and outright fraud in an article entitled, “The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions.“ Despite their sketchy reputation, the MLC and City Hall decided to redirect the public’s tax revenue to one of them so they could claim they’re saving taxpayers money. Who do they think paid the taxes that support Medicare?
Outside City Hall.
*qphotonyc is a retired NYC public employee.