City retirees' health benefits take center stage at mayoral forum

All but one of the seven candidates for mayor who assembled at the CUNY Graduate Center to debate health care and other topics were adamant on the topic of most interest to attendees: Municipal retirees must be able to keep the health care benefits they were promised when they signed up to work for the city. 

“As mayor, I will stand up and guarantee the continuation of traditional Medicare benefits like you were promised,” said city Comptroller Brad Lander, reflecting the sentiments of five of his fellow candidates. “And that's because you've done all the work to serve New York City.”

Although the roughly two-hour event had the mayoral hopefuls also answer questions related to education and the economy, the debate’s ostensible purpose was to gauge the candidates’ take on the Adams administration’s attempt to shift municipal retirees to a Medicare Advantage plan from their current traditional Medicare plan. The proposal has received significant blowback from a coalition of retirees, in particular the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, which hosted the April 17 debate, attracting 200 to Proshansky Auditorium and untold others who tuned in via the online broadcasts

All but Whitney Tilson, a former hedge-fund manager and self-described “pro-business Democrat” who helped found the Teach for America nonprofit, railed against the proposed switch.

Noting what he said was a looming deficit that could reach into the tens of billions of dollars to fund municipal health care, Tilson noted efforts by the de Blasio administration and city unions “to bend the cost curve related to long-term health-care benefits.” 

“And Medicare Advantage was the option or people could pay to continue to have unlimited choice,” he said. “So I'm going to be the skunk at the garden party and tell you that speaking as a mayor, for all New Yorkers who have to pay for this, we need to figure out a way to bend that cost curve.” Medicare Advantage, he said to scattered jeers from the audience, “is an option that should be on the table.”

But Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos, the chair of that chamber’s Labor Committee who is bidding to become the city’s first woman mayor, said switching the roughly 250,000 municipal retirees to what have been widely and frequently derided as substandard, for-profit health care plans should set off alarms. 

“It's a very dangerous precedent to set to allow a mayor or anyone to withhold the benefits and services that you not only were promised, but that you've paid for with your hard work and sacrifice, your blood, sweat and tears and your love for this city,” said Ramos, who alluded to the right-wing policy playbook Project 2025’s proposal to make privately administered Medicare Advantage plans the default option for Medicare enrollees. 

Sliwa cites ‘trifecta of evil’

The Adams administration, and before that the de Blasio administration, has pushed for the Medicare Advantage switch, citing runaway health-care costs. Both administrations have estimated the savings obtained from a planned switch at $600 million, which they, in turn, would designate for the city’s Joint Health Insurance Premium Stabilization Fund, which supports unions’ welfare-fund benefits, among other purposes. 

The savings would be derived from federal subsidies that help offset the cost to government. But opponents say the alleged savings would amount to just over a half-percent of the city budget.

Courts have consistently sided with the retirees, their latest success coming in December, when a unanimous state Court of Appeals found that the city's administrative code requires the city to pay up to the statutory cap for all plans it offers to its employees and former workers, including Medicare supplement insurance, or so-called Medigap plans for the city’s retirees.

The seven judges’ ruling, though, did not address whether the city is obliged to offer a particular plan, leaving open the possibility, however slim, that the Adams administration could succeed in convincing the appeals panel, in another, ongoing case, that it is not statutorily compelled to do so.

Curtis Sliwa, the sole Republican among the candidates at the forum, recalled Adams’ pronounced opposition to what then was the de Blasio’s administration’s proposal. Sliwa cited a debate with Adams at which the eventual mayor pledged to keep retirees in their current health plan. 

“He would swear on it, having been a municipal worker himself,” Sliwa said, referring, principally, to Adams’ 22-year NYPD career. “Well, the trifecta of evil has emerged — the three A’s: Eric Adams, [City Council] Speaker Adrienne Adams and Aetna,” he added, referring to the managed-care giant, whose agreement with the city to administer a Medicare Advantage plan was green-lighted in 2023 by the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella organization of municipal unions. 

Adrienne Adams, also a mayoral candidate, has effectively blocked efforts to preserve the retirees’ current Medicare. She, along with the incumbent mayor, Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and Brooklyn State Senator Zellnor Myrie were all absent from the forum. As was former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is widely considered the front-runner to succeed Adams. His office did not respond to an inquiry regarding his position on the issue. 

Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor who is running as an independent and whose firm has represented the retirees in their court fights against the city, recalled enthusiastically joining their cause. “I said, ‘hell yes,’” he recounted when he was asked by a colleague if his firm would represent the retired workers. “Because you have earned what you have. You should not be placed on any program that limits your choices or increases your expenses or puts you at risk.” 

Like others present at the forum, former Manhattan Borough President and city Comptroller Scott Stringer thanked the former municipal workers in the audience for their service to the city. 

“Without you, this city would not be where it is today. And the reason, the reason you have pension benefits and health care is because you back-ended compensation. You sacrificed during the fiscal crisis in the ‘70s and you sacrificed every year since,” said Stringer, who placed fifth in the mayoral contest four years ago.

"I will never, ever allow your benefits to be reduced. Health care, pension or otherwise,” he added.

Michael Blake, a former Assembly member who represented portions of the Bronx, noted his union bona fides in promising to preserve the retirees’ current benefits. 

“I come to you as someone who is a son of a labor household myself, and we're not going to allow for your pension, your retirement to be destroyed by a mayor who's just trying to keep himself out of jail,” he said. “And so being very clear, at the end of the day, our job is to make sure that you, your families and those that come after actually are able to have the potential protection that you deserve.”

richardk@thechiefleader.com