October 1, 2024
The NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
MONDAY: New Yorkers Tell Mayor Adams, “Stop trying to take Medicare away from NYC retirees!”
Hundreds of Protestors to Demonstrate at City Hall and Aetna Offices
“Eric Adams may have just been indicted, but he lost our trust years ago when launched a costly legal battle to take away NYC retirees’ access to Medicare.”
What: In the wake of Mayor Eric Adams’s indictment on five counts of bribery, fraud, and campaign finance violations, hundreds of New Yorkers will protest at City Hall on Monday to demand the City immediately drop Adams’s push to take Medicare away from NYC public service retirees. Hundreds of people including NYC retirees, doctors, nurses, and healthcare advocates will deliver a petition with tens of thousands of signatures.
Demonstrators will then march to Aetna CVS Health’s offices and stage street theater denouncing the insurance corporation’s profiteering at the expense of the health and lives of seniors and people with disabilities.
When/Where: Monday, September 30.
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Brief speaking program begins at 11:30am at City Hall Park near the Jacob Wrey Mould fountain.
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Protesters will march from City Hall to Spring Street Park where a demonstration and brief street theater stunt will take place at 1:30pm outside Aetna CVS Health’s One Soho Square offices.
Acivists mobilized at City Hall on Monday morning.
Images: Hundreds of people are expected to participate in the protest, including seniors and healthcare professionals carrying signs with Mayor Adams’s face and messaging about deadly delays and denials of necessary healthcare by insurance corporations like Aetna CVS Health that run Medicare Advantage plans.
(L) Dr. Donald Moore MD, MPH, PNHP Board Member; (C) Retiree Activist; (R) Council Member Christopher Marte.
Speakers: NYC retirees personally affected by the Mayor’s push to force Medicare-eligible retirees into Medicare Advantage plans; healthcare workers; and family members of people who have been harmed by insurance company greed that delays and denies life-saving healthcare.
(L) Marianne Pizzitola addresses activists at City Hall on Monday.
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Context: Since 2021, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his administration have been fighting a costly legal battle to push public retirees including teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, 9/11 first responders and other public servants onto privatized Medicare Advantage plans and strip away their access to Medicare benefits. The city’s plan has been rejected by the courts multiple times, and yet the Mayor continues to pursue the plan to hand over retiree healthcare benefits to profit-driven insurance corporations. Adams is specifically pursuing a contract with Aetna CVS Health, even though the switch to Medicare Advantage would benefit Adams and for-profit insurance companies but would not save the City a dime.
Recent investigations have found that the largest insurers in Medicare Advantage have committed widespread fraud and denied patients critical care they were supposed to provide by law; more broadly, they limit provider networks, delay care, and routinely deny claims in order to turn massive profits at the expense of retirees’ health.
Medicare open enrollment season begins on October 15. Read more about the protesters’ demands to Mayor Adams and to Aetna.
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The NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees was founded to protect the rights and benefits of retired NYC Municipal retirees. When your former employer and former union look to benefit by changing your contractual rights, and diminished your retirement, every retiree should get a chill. Stand up… and defend your earned benefits. Unions used to protect their retirees, not sell them out. Let’s remind them, they have what they do today, because we broke our backs to get them there. Let them know enough is enough!
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