Speak up

To the editor:

Mayor Eric Adams has promoted his shift in the health-care coverage of the city's 250,000 retired employees to an inferior for-profit plan on financial grounds. The mayor has repeatedly claimed that the change will generate $600 million in federal subsidies. Some have argued that the mayor's figure is inflated.

The point is that the mayor has never explained how the subsidy was determined. This raises a number of unanswered questions. Has the touted subsidy been formally promised by the Biden administration? If so, why hasn't the mayor released the supporting agreement?

Is the subsidy estimated or projected based on some federal or questionable criteria? If so, have the calculations been independently audited?

Finally, did the mayor magically conjure the subsidy from his mind in the same way Donald Trump mentally declassified the government documents he stole?

Without answers to these questions, the legitimacy of the mayor's claim remains questionable. City retirees current and future ought to know how much he has sold them out for.

Here's another issue that needs to be addressed. Why is the progressive Biden administration rewarding the city for removing retirees from the hugely popular and successful Medicare program which they have paid into throughout their careers? Why isn't the city's Congressional delegation opposing this harmful financial initiative? In particular, why have the city's own Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries remained silent on the administration's effort to incentivize reductions in Medicare enrollment?

Arnold Kingston