One for all

To the editor: Shades of Bacchus, municipal retirees are furious over the city's effort to enroll them in a cost-cutting Medicare Advantage Plan.

For two years, the municipal government has tried to shift approximately 250,000 retirees into an Advantage plan so that the city would save $600 million annually. Retirees are fuming because they fear that under the new plan they would lose access to certain doctors, medical procedures and drugs. Despite the retirees' protestations, mealy-mouthed Mayor Eric Adams and the city's Municipal Labor Committee bosses signed off on a contract deal with Aetna. Thus, the Advantage plan would be the only premium-free health insurance available to municipal retirees.

Retirees who are opposed to Advantage have referenced federal studies finding that beneficiaries are sometimes denied medically necessary care under such plans due to pre-authorization protocols. Most of the municipal retirees concerned about Advantage are currently benefiting from Medicare, and the NYC- subsidized GHI Senior Care supplement, a traditional Medicare coverage benefit.

Health-care reform has been a topic of debate in the U.S. for decades. Two terms used to discuss it are universal health-care coverage and the single payer system. Universal health care can be achieved under a government-run system, a private health-insurance system, or a combination of the two. A number of legislators are in favor of Medicare for All, by which the U.S. government would pay for most coverage. Medicare for All would provide more coverage than the current Medicare program provides.

Although opponents of Medicare for All label it as socialized health care, none of the recent U.S. proposals rely on, or incorporate, socialized medicine.

Robert Sica