Tutti Frutti Loopi on Medicare

To the editor: 

Municipal Labor Committee leader Harry Nespoli would have city retirees believe that the only way to save the city's Health Insurance Premium Stabilization Fund from bankruptcy is to force city retirees to give up their Medicare coverage for a Medicare Advantage plan (The Chief, Sept. 16t).

I'm not affected since I'm a New York City Transit retiree. I selected straight Medicare because I've never heard of a Medicare Advantage plan that equals it. Perhaps the people who believe Nespoli's assertion  that retirees' coverage will be as good if they switch also believe Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti" is equal in quality to the Little Richard original.

This dubious switch is supposed to save the city $600 million a year. This is supposed to replenish the before-mentioned fund and finance future raises for current city workers. Obviously, if money cannot already be found in an approximately $100 billion city budget for this, then Mayor Adams does not consider this to be a priority. Neither did his predecessor, who proposed the switch. Their claims to be pro-worker are obviously just lip-service.

The city's unionized workers labored for years without a contract because they refused Mayor Bloomberg's demands that they self-fund their raises. How is this suddenly acceptable under the current mayor?

Also, the fact that 108 out of 124 labor leaders voted to shaft their retirees in the area of health care shows that most of our city's unions have very poor leadership.

Richard Warren