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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Speaking of the local primaries, last night, I co-moderated the final Democratic primary debate for New York City Comptroller between Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Brooklyn City Council Member and Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan. They agreed on most things, but not everything. Wait till you hear them on Medicare Advantage. We'll play that clip.

The other moderators were Errol Louis from NY1 and Alyssa Katz, executive editor of the news organization THE CITY, who joins us now as we play some excerpts and try to help you make your decision for the Office of Comptroller if you're a registered Democrat in New York City. Let's be honest, not many people think very much about this office, but it's very important to the city and even more so when you don't like whoever the mayor is. Hey, Alyssa, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Alyssa Katz: Hello, Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to jump right into this Medicare Advantage clip. We get so many listener calls and texts about this, as I know you get reader comments. For listeners who don't know, this is about the deal between the city and municipal workers' unions to force many city retirees to switch from traditional Medicare to the privatized Medicare Advantage system. Here's the full exchange on that from last night, and it begins with Alyssa's question.

Alyssa Katz: Our news organizations, WNYC, NY1, and THE CITY, we asked our listeners, viewers, and readers to send in questions. We heard from a lot of folks about Medicare Advantage, including from Sarah from Yorkville and many, many others. We wanted to ask about this planned switch to Medicare Advantage for city employees who are retired, which paid for raises for current city workers but has also raised an uproar among retirees who say that it will provide reduced benefits to them and has so far been blocked in court.

As the steward of the city's finances, what would you recommend the next mayor do about the promised billions of dollars in health care cost savings tied to past union contracts while also getting retired city workers the health care they were promised? We'll start with you, Mr. Levine.

Mark Levine: Well, this is actually an issue that the next comptroller might have a formal role on. Presumably, new contracts would come before the new comptroller's office for review and certification. I will make a decision on this based on the details of the plan in consultation with retirees, with current workers, with labor leaders, and more. I have values, and I believe that retirees should have outstanding health care. I believe they should continue to have plans with zero premiums. I'll fight to make sure that those values endure if I'm the next comptroller.

Alyssa Katz: Mr. Brannan.

Justin Brannan: Medicare Advantage is a scam. It's a step away from the privatization of health care. Retirees, whatever health care plan you signed up for on the first day you started working, that is the retirement plan that you should retire with. The city of New York should not be balancing its budget on the backs of retirees, of folks who invested the best years of their life to the city of New York.

I am a proud sponsor of Intro 1096. I would love for the borough president to join me as a sponsor, which effectively blocks Medicare Advantage. We have to have a serious conversation about the cost of health care in the city, in this country. The cost of hospitalization, the cost of prescription drugs is out of control as we are all living longer, which is a good thing, but we don't save money by screwing over retirees. Medicare Advantage is a bad deal, it's a scam, and the city of New York should back off of Medicare Advantage to protect our retirees because they invested in our city and gave us some of their best years.

Alyssa Katz: Very quickly, Mr. Levine.

Mark Levine: The council member became a sponsor of this bill a matter of days ago after resisting for years and years and years. This is an 11th-hour conversion for purely political reasons. I'm about substance and I'm going to make this decision based on the facts.

Alyssa Katz: Mr. Brannan.

Justin Brannan: Borough presidents sponsor and introduce bills all the time. The borough president could sign on to Intro 1096 tonight if he'd like to, but he hasn't. I stand up for retirees. I'm against Medicare Advantage. I don't know what [crosstalk]

Mark Levine: Then why did you wait three years to get on the bill?

Justin Brannan: Why don't you sign on to the bill?

Brian Lehrer: Comptroller candidates Justin Brannan and Mark Levine on the Medicare Advantage issue from last night's debate. We played that three full three-minute exchange with the luxury of time that we have on this show and because we thought it was worth it. Alyssa, if this is so unpopular with the retirees, why did the unions in question agree in their contract negotiations to force retirees onto Medicare Advantage?

Alyssa Katz: To answer that, we have to go back about almost a decade ago to when Bill de Blasio was mayor. Remember, union workers had not had a raise in a very long time. Mayor Bloomberg had not resolved expired contracts because they wanted raises and he wanted givebacks to pay for them. De Blasio and his labor commissioner, along with the major unions, including DC 37, the United Federation of Teachers, the Municipal Labor Committee, negotiated a deal where they would realize healthcare savings amounting to several hundred million dollars every year, and many of those recurring, and they left open how they would achieve those savings.

More recently, and this really began at the end of de Blasio's term and was renewed by Eric Adams, the unions agreed that Medicare Advantage, that moving retirees to this lesser health care plan that costs less would be the way to do it. Why did the union support it? Well, they wanted raises for their current workers. They wanted to come back to them with new contracts, which they did get. The retirees are not their concern, quite frankly. They really, in effect, sold out the retirees in order to get raises for their current workers.

You've seen a remarkable split since then, where, for instance, the president of DC 37, Henry Garrido, who was also president back then, has fiercely defended the deal, understanding what's at stake for his current members, whereas United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew has pretty much abandoned the Medicare Advantage and said, "Well, we can't do this," but leaving open the question, which is really the question on the table now for any candidate for mayor or comptroller of like, what should be done, especially if Medicare Advantage is defeated in court, which is certainly what the retirees hope will happen.

Brian Lehrer: The candidates were different enough. Of course, there's a lot in that exchange we played to parse through. Tell me if you think this is an accurate way to boil it down. It seemed like Brannan was just denouncing the deal, denouncing it, and Levine was more open to looking at it in the context of overall city finances and pension fund finances. Is that how you heard it?

Alyssa Katz: That's correct. Certainly, overall city finances is what applies here. He was quite clear about it. If you really listen carefully to that exchange, Levine was saying, "I'm going to look at the facts." He also said he's going to consult with the unions, with the retirees, and with city workers. Then meanwhile, you had Brannan say, "Medicare Advantage is a scam." I think they were presenting two very different approaches to how they will deal with this very large fiscal challenge as mayor.

I do not want to minimize how much money is at stake. It's a kind of remarkable case. You have the Adams administration currently suing the unions, saying that because Medicare Advantage has been blocked in court because the retirees sued, the city is claiming the unions owe $4 billion because those healthcare savings that paid for their raises have been unrealized. I like to think of it as that Levine is looking at that dollar figure saying, "Well, this is how I will deal with it."

I think for very good reasons of his own, Brannan is saying, "Look, the reality is that the retirees were really sold out by the unions, and we need to make sure that they get the health care that they were promised." The lawsuit that's pending at the state's highest court is based on the city charter requirements for applying to retiree health care. I think he is, in his own way, looking at it realistically and saying, "Well, we've got to make good on this and figure something out." It was a very interesting exchange about their approaches to the office.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take a call on this before we move on to some other clips from the debate from last night. Here's Maxine in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Maxine.

Maxine: Hi there. I am a retiree from PSB CUNY, the city university. I'm calling to correct what people are saying, which is it wasn't all unions that supported that deal, okay? It was basically DC 37 and the UFT, because, on the Metropolitan Labor Council, they control all the votes. They have enough votes to win anything, okay? Many unions, the smaller unions voted against that deal, which was started with de Blasio, so don't say all unions supported it. They didn't.

Brian Lehrer: That's fair, Maxine, but is it binding? I actually don't know the answer to this question. Is it binding on your union, too, even if they opposed it at the start?

Maxine: Yes, because the way the Metropolitan Labor Council was set up is that-- I mean, every union is going to have to do it if that thing goes through.

Brian Lehrer: Right, because it's a unified program.

Maxine: The way it works is that even if smaller unions oppose it, then the other two big ones can win the vote in that council.

Brian Lehrer: Got you. Maxine, thank you for clarifying. Last thing on this, Alyssa, and my guest is Alyssa Katz, executive editor of the news organization THE CITY, who was a co-moderator with Errol Louis and me at the New York City Democratic primary comptroller's debate last night. Does the comptroller have any power over this issue other than the bully pulpit, Alyssa?

Alyssa Katz: Levine's response last night was very interesting also in that he was saying that he expects that Medicare Advantage could come before the comptroller's office and that if he were a comptroller, he would have a say on that contract. I did not get a chance to check that yet about whether that would, in fact, be the case. Generally, the comptroller's power of review applies to a contract for goods and services. That is a very interesting question that he is raising.

Clearly, the comptroller has a bully pulpit, and they engage a lot with retirees because of their role in overseeing the pension funds. They are very invested in retirees as stakeholders. I just do anticipate that the comptroller will have a role in some way, even if they don't fully have power over the deal.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. That's a voting issue, at least for people who put Medicare Advantage for city retirees near the top of their voting items list. Next clip. This is on what to divest pension funds from. The pension funds make huge investments in stocks and bonds and have some market power in that respect. There are sectors or companies, as some of you know, that the city government considers inconsistent with New York values such as tobacco and fossil fuels that they've divested from. Brannan added he would divest from Tesla. They both said they would not divest from Israel or companies doing business with it. Then I asked this question submitted by one of you, submitted by a listener to our show.

Brian Lehrer: A follow-up question on divestment in general. This was submitted by a listener to my radio show as an alternative to divestment in some things. The listener asks, "Do you favor holding stock in companies whose policies you disagree with in order to be able to propose shareholder resolutions to change their policies?" Are there cases in which you would do that, Mr. Brannan?

Justin Brannan: Absolutely. I think we need to get much more aggressive with our pension system. As long as you're getting that 7% return for the retirees, you need to get aggressive. Because what we're seeing now is red states. Texas right now is pounding their chest because they got their money managers to completely divest from alternative energy and only divest in oil and gas.

With a pension system in New York City that's almost $300 billion, we need to use that leverage for a cleaner future, for a safer future. We can't be afraid to rattle that saber and say, "Look, if you're not going to do what we want you to do, we're going to take our money elsewhere." Red states are doing it. We need to have that same killer instinct to grow and protect our pension, but also to ensure that our investments are aligned with our values.

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Levine.

Mark Levine: We have real power here. We own stock in virtually every company in America and virtually every major global company. We are shareholders. We elect the board of directors. We can use that power to fight for companies which adhere to our values and, I believe, achieve greater longer-term business success. We have an advantage here. Blue cities and blue states control twice the assets of red states. We need to use that power to fight back. This is our moment. With Trump pushing corporate America to abandon diversity, climate, and worker safety, we can use our pension funds to push back.

Brian Lehrer: The candidates there responding to a listener question from one of you that was submitted to our newsletter in our reader response section, if you're subscribed to our newsletter. Alyssa, that was interesting. Any thoughts on the whole divestment section?

Alyssa Katz: I think first of all, both Brannan and Levine are really speaking to a power that the comptroller's office has exercised pretty aggressively, certainly under Lander, the current comptroller and I believe under his predecessors, including Scott Stringer, who both Lander and Stringer are running for mayor. The office is already very involved in shareholder resolutions and really strategizing around social objectives.

I think that's obviously come to the fore in a lot of ways right now because of the magnification of federal politics. You have this opportunity now as the federal government is very strategically divesting from certain areas or attacking certain practices to assert those practices within the private sector. It's sort of irony that you have government officials here trying to wield influence over the private sector. To take one example, we didn't talk about this at the debate, but I could certainly see DEI being an area of interest in addition, obviously, to fossil fuel resolutions in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, the opposite of what Trump is doing, rewarding companies with pension investments if they think they will be good investments, but if they have good diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, right?

Alyssa Katz: Right, or sponsoring shareholder resolutions that actually encourage changes because you, in fact, are major, major shareholders. We have billions of dollars in these funds and you can throw your weight around as the five pension funds. I think there's a very interesting opportunity to be a counterweight to federal politics right now and to the pressures that companies are under to abandon practices that are important to the companies in many cases and certainly important to the stakeholders in the pension funds Here.

Brian Lehrer: One of the sections of the debate was how to so-called Trump-proof New York City finances, as Trump does so much defunding of city things, like he's doing so much defunding of all kinds of things. This is one of the few things that they did differ on. I don't have the clip, but Levine basically said, "We need a reserve fund. We need to add to the city's reserve fund so we have money to spend on important things as the federal government divests from the city." Brannan was in another lane on that. He said, "No, if Trump is taking money out of vital city services right now, we need to spend that money, not sock it away." I don't know which is really better, but that was an interesting disagreement.

Alyssa Katz: It was certainly an interesting and very much defining disagreement between the two of them. Look, ultimately, the comptroller does not get to decide how the city budget is spent. That is the role of the City Council, where Brannan is the finance chair. That's kind of his major credential that he is bringing into this election. The comptrollers certainly have a bully pulpit and also have the ability to analyze the budget and make recommendations and they testify before the council and so forth.

Look, this is going to be a very, very difficult set of political decisions for our next class of leaders of the city, especially mayor and the council speaker, to make, because you have massive federal cuts, many of which are hitting New York City institutions very directly. We, of course, have the dramatic pullback on funding for FEMA, for example, for emergency management, which paid for migrant care and shelter, pullbacks on housing. HUD is going to be going through dramatic changes under pretty much any scenario, which affects public housing, other subsidies we count on, all the arts funding cuts. We could go on and on and on.

We are going to be facing very difficult financial times and difficult choices. On top of that, there certainly is a need to protect the city finances overall from just going into the red. There's a great documentary recently called Drop Dead City about the 1975 fiscal crisis. I went on Bluesky and said that every candidate for comptroller-- I think I said every candidate for comptroller and mayor should watch this because it really shows you what can happen very quickly if you-- for the best of reasons and best of intentions.

The film captured this very well about how important the values were and the programs were for the people of New York. It turned out that because the federal government was not aligned, same as the situation as we're in now with those objectives, cut out the needs from under New York City. We were left in very dire straits. It took years to recover from that fiscal crisis.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that history, and I haven't seen the film, but that history gives us, I think, a lesson in how little power a mayor and a comptroller, in particular, have if the federal government is putting its knee on the neck of New York in that way. Because Abe Beame was the comptroller in the late '60s, early '70s, and then he was elected mayor. He's the last comptroller to have successfully then run for mayor and gotten elected, elected mayor in 1973, and that's when it all blew up. Presumably, he had his eye on the city's finances as comptroller, and yet he couldn't prevent the meltdown.

Alyssa Katz: Yes. The film is rather fascinating on this point, and it made me just want to dig deeper into what the heck happened with Beame in particular. In the film, he's kind of a tragic figure, kind of very helpless, as the Ford administration is telling the city to drop dead. What really is clear is that the unions, especially, were really driving the bus around just-- You had strikes and other efforts to try to really put pressure on City Hall to make sure that unions were made whole, but they were the first ones to basically have mass layoffs, not get paid.

It was really a tragic situation where the leadership of the city kind of lost control. It was very, very messy. We have great civic leadership here that pulled together and brought everyone around the table, brought the unions together, brought the governance into play, and just pulled us out of a situation. We really shouldn't get to that point now. I think this is really why I personally think that the race for comptroller is so important. I really hope that your listeners are thinking hard about how they're going to be voting because it will do a lot to determine what happens next in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: That's a good place to end, except that I want to give you the chance to also mention something else that I know you keyed on from the debate last night, and that is when they got to question each other. That's practically an invitation for contentiousness when candidates are invited to ask one question of each other, or, as will be the case in our mayoral debate tomorrow night, one question of any other one candidate. In this case, there were only two candidates. What did you learn from that?

Alyssa Katz: It was interesting. Politicians are politicians and they're going to have to make the decisions they make under high pressure. You had Brannan taking Levine to task for voting to defund the police in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd and the protests that happened after that. Levine basically said that that was then and under very different circumstances. Especially as he pointed out, the city was in a financial crisis then because of the COVID shutting down the economy.

Really, at some point, New York City had a cash flow problem early in the pandemic. I think he was trying to spin that as, "See, I was being fiscally responsible," which is a very interesting way to recast his vote. Then meanwhile, Levine took Brannan to task for when Brannan had championed the City of Yes rezoning proposal and actually used that in the debate as one of his credentials around both making tough decisions and taking tough stands that people don't always like and also one of his credentials on housing development and promoting affordable housing.

He also carved out large parts of Bay Ridge, the community that he represents in the City Council from what are called accessory dwelling unit zoning changes that would have allowed basement and backyard apartments. Basically, Levine took Brannan to task for being a NIMBY, not in my backyard. Levine has put himself in very pro-development and very yes in my backyard. That was, I think, an interesting exchange as well.

Brian Lehrer: Alyssa Katz, executive editor of the news organization THE CITY. She was a co-moderator last night with me and Errol Louis from Inside City Hall on NY1 in the New York City Democratic primary comptroller's debate. Alyssa's colleague from the city, Katie Honan, will join Errol and me tomorrow night at 7:00 for the Democratic mayoral primary debate here on the station and on NY1 and NY1 Noticias. Alyssa, thanks for coming on on the morning after.

Alyssa Katz: Thank you very much.

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