Where's the money hiding?

To the editor:

As a retired transit worker, I have memories of bad rulings by bad arbitrators. Now, New York City retirees are experiencing the same from some arbitrator named Martin Scheinman ("City must switch retirees to private plan," The Chief, Dec. 23,).

I'm glad that the president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, Marianne Pizzitola, has vowed, "I'm ready for more litigation if they do this." That would be the result either of the City Council amending the Administrative Code to allow the city to bill seniors who stick with the Medicare they were promised at no charge or Medicare being eliminated and replaced with a Medicare Advantage plan.

The reason cited by the city for the change is the claim that it would save $600 million a year. Neither Mayor Eric Adams or his predecessor have explained how $600 million cannot be found elsewhere in a city budget of approximately $100 billion. Neither have they explained how the $1 billion taken from the Health Stabilization Fund to meet salary obligations could not have been found in such a large budget.

Another question is raised by a World Trade Center respiratory patient in a letter from the Dec. 20 Daily News. Kathryn Nocerino wrote of the Medicare Advantage programs, "The U.S Department of Justice has been indicting one of these plans after another for massive Medicare fraud, including overcharges to municipalities for 'phantom' procedures while denying patients necessary services." So how will the city save money if the expense of the 'phantom' procedures are greater than the money saved by denying patients necessary treatment? That raises the question of whether the city will actually save money.

So if the city, the retirees and workers (who will eventually be retirees) represented by the lame union leaders who are supporting this switch are not benefiting from it, then who is? Perhaps the U.S. Department of Justice should investigate this.

Richard Warren