NYC municipal retirees celebrate end of push toward Medicare Advantage
Retired public service workers took part in a celebratory press conference at City Hall Park on Monday, June 23. During an event organized by Council Member Christopher Marte, elderly and disabled former New York City employees chanted and waved banners while standing out in the mid-morning’s 90-plus degree heat. They braved the day’s extreme weather so they could applaud Mayor Eric Adams’ June 20 announcement that the city will no longer try to require them to use Medicare Advantage for their healthcare.
“We have heard concerns from retirees about these potential changes at numerous older adult town halls and public events,” Mayor Adams confessed in a statement released just days before he begins his reelection campaign, “and our administration remains focused on ensuring that New York City remains an affordable place to live. Thankfully, we have found other ways to address health care costs while providing quality health care coverage for our city’s workers, and we have decided not to move forward with the Medicare Advantage plan at this time.”
Though retiree health care benefits have been legally safeguarded since 1967, in March 2023, New York City began trying to transition its retirees from traditional Medicare and supplemental plans to a Medicare Advantage plan.
The city was set to sign a five-year-plus contract to have its roughly 250,000 retirees begin using the Aetna Medicare Advantage PPO plan. The city claimed Aetna’s plan could help reduce its payout costs and save about $600 million.
But retirees resisted the city’s efforts. Groups like the Cross-union Retirees Organizing Committee (CROC) argued that Medicare Advantage offers clients fewer options to select their preferred healthcare providers.
Marianne Pizzitola, a retired FDNY EMS member who is president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees, told the City Hall rally that retirees are grateful Mayor Adams has finally said his administration will not pursue the Aetna plan: “How do you think that would have turned out when it came to deciding whether a procedure was medically necessary?” she asked the crowd. “So, thanks to Mayor Adams and the stance he took last Friday, the retirees now have been handed a victory. It could not have happened if the 250,000 retirees themselves had not made their voices crystal clear.”
But Pizzitola added that there remains a need to pass legislation that would make this victory permanent. Council Member Marte has sponsored a bill that would permanently protect the healthcare choices of current and future retirees against automatic enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans. Retirees in attendance blamed City Council Speaker Adrian Adams for not pushing that legislation forward.
“There are over 250,000 retirees, plus their loved ones, plus their extended families that rely on this crucial health care plan,” CM Marte told the crowd. “This was literally life and death for many people, and throughout this struggle, which took a really, really, long time, for no reason at all, it brought mental stress on many of our most vulnerable. It brought financial frustration to many people living in our city and around this country, and more importantly, it brought uncertainty to people’s future, not just retirees, but also current city employees.
“This is something that the city council should do,” Marte said: “City Council have legislated on this for decades, and Intro 1096, is just the next step forward to make sure that we finally put this to an end and codify the protection that these folks deserve and these folks need.”
