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Retirees were sold out

Posted

To the editor:

March 9th will be remembered as the sellout day by Henry Garrido and Michael Mulgrew, whose "weighted" union votes caused the death of traditional Medicare for city retirees. The decision to favor Aetna Medicare Advantage not only affects the 250,000 retirees, but also the 1.4 million municipal workers and their spouses as future retirees. 

These rogue union leaders backed the mayor's plan against the interest of retirees and their own rank and file. The Municipal Labor Committee’s decision gives Aetna a massively profitable business contract and Mulgrew's UFT gets bailed out of the $1 billion-plus gutted from the Health Stabilization Fund to give teacher raises.  

We retirees get left with the bill. Medicare Advantage plan administrators are notorious for reviewing claims and denying benefits without a medical professional ever seeing patients.  

They even coerce participating network providers into following certain levels of treatment through either sanctions or rewards. Medicare Advantage plans answer to their shareholders and not to its client members.

Joseph Campbell

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