[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We begin today with retirees and revolt, not just in France, as many of you were just hearing on the BBC, but in New York and across the United States. Maybe they should be chanting, "We are old, we are bold, get used to it." The issue in France, as you've been hearing is raising the official retirement age from 62 to 64. The issue here is forcing retirees off traditional Medicare and into the managed care plans known as Medicare Advantage. It's happening to seniors all across the country.

Here in New York, the issue is really coming to a head right now for retired New York City public sector workers; teachers, firefighters, and many others. Just yesterday, Mayor Eric Adams refused those retirees request to have the option as individuals to stay on traditional Medicare. He said the city can't afford it. Also, yesterday, some of you may have seen the New York Times had a story about the Biden administration trying to reduce payments to Medicare Advantage plans because it says those private plans are costing the government more than traditional Medicare, not less, because they've been found to overbill the government in organized acts of fraud.

Here is maybe the most bizarre and troubling aspect of this trend, at least locally. The mayor and the New York City public sector union leaders are on the same side. That's right. Union leaders like Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT very much in the crosshairs here, are imposing this unwanted shift in healthcare plans to their own retired members, apparently in exchange for higher pay for the current workers. In fairness, the switch will also provide some new benefits such as routine hearing and vision exams, hearing aids and mental healthcare provided via telemedicine that traditional Medicare doesn't have.

Many older Americans are choosing Medicare Advantage Plans voluntarily. Here's Mulgrew, leader of the teachers union, in the WNYC interview on March 10th, saying retirees will mostly get to keep their current doctors.

Michael Mulgrew: Our goal was to make sure that we actually matched all the benefits that our retirees currently have, and then see what we could actually gain in negotiations by really being a hard-nosed about it with the company.

Brian Lehrer: After those negotiations, many retired teachers and other city workers are not convinced. They're angry, they're scared about their health futures, and they feel betrayed by their own unions. They're old, they're bold, get used to it, and they're calling it already, like crazy. Let me give out the phone number 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Joining us now with those unhappy retirees' perspective is Marianne Pizzitola, president of a group that has formed around this issue, the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees.

She herself has retired from the FDNY's EMT branch. Marianne, thanks for your service, first of all, and thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Marianne Pizzitola: Thank you, and thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Just to help our listeners get to know you a little more, what more specifically did you do as a city worker, and when did you retire?

Marianne Pizzitola: We worked for New York City EMS in 1996. The EMS branch was merged into the New York City Fire Department. I was in EMT for New York City, and I retired in 2004.

Brian Lehrer: There are hundreds of thousands of New York City workers in any given year. Can you give us a rough number of how many current New York City retirees there would be today?

Marianne Pizzitola: The city uses the number 250,000 Medicare-eligible retirees, and that would be your over-65 or your disabled retirees. There are many more that are under 65.

Brian Lehrer: They would all be switched into this one Aetna Medicare Advantage plan involuntarily?

Marianne Pizzitola: Yes, stripping them of their current 14 choices of healthcare plans and forced into one managed Medicare Advantage plan.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe the answer is obvious, but what led you to start this group, the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees?

Marianne Pizzitola: Specifically to challenge this issue as we know what we were promised when we were hired, that we would have a choice of healthcare plans, and because we gave up years of fire wages in order to maintain or preserve our health benefits that we would have these benefits until our death. We were told that the benefits that we had in employment would carry over into our retirement, and this was something that we relied upon as a form of deferred compensation.

To have that reliance on being in a federal public benefit of Medicare, a gift given to us by President Lyndon Johnson and Mayor Lindsay, to then have it taken from us by this administration, and our own unions is absolutely a disgrace. We decided we were going to fight back. Our concern was that we are very familiar, or as customized as Mr. Mulgrew likes to say this plan is, it's not traditional Medicare, and this is where it gets concerning.

Why we decided to push back was because you are stripping people out of a current benefit that they have, and all the little perks that you want to say makes a custom, like a silver sneaker or a hearing test, which you can still get is not enough. Where we're giving up access to our medical providers, narrowed networks that prevent us from seeing all of the doctors in America that accept Medicare today, and then being subject to prior authorizations, where instead of my doctor determining what my care should be, I'm leaving it to a health insurance company.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get you to talk more about the dispute that the retirees have with your unions. This may be the most surprising part to people who are not already involved in this issue. As I understand it, the roots of this go back to a labor agreement struck with the De Blasio administration nearly a decade ago to give raises to city workers in exchange for promised savings on health care costs, which keep going up. This is a big way the union is making good on their part of the agreement. Medicare Advantage for retirees, I've read that this is projected to save the taxpayer $600 million a year. Is that your understanding of why we're even having this conversation?

Marianne Pizzitola: This would be the first time, Brian, that a union in history negotiated a contract that was partially funded on the backs of other union workers and retirees. That contract was basically the start of the destruction of the labor movement in New York City. That absolutely happened. In 2014, the UFT negotiated a contract that was partially funded by other labor organizations and the retirees. It required $1 billion to be transferred to the city from the health insurance stabilization fund that primarily benefits active workers and under 65 non-Medicare retirees.

Provides differences in premium for their healthcare plans as well as their prescription vision and dental, their welfare fund benefits. Out of that health insurance Stabilization Fund, a Medicare retiree does not typically benefit other than a welfare fund benefit, the prescription vision or dental, and managers who are not Union are also affected by this. Since they don't have a union with them, they are also compelled to the same decisions that the municipal Labor Committee make. Yes, that is exactly how that happened, that they negotiated a savings that was borne by the rest of us in order to get their collective bargaining raises.

How we say it, they sold off their most vulnerable population and Medicare-eligible retirees in order to benefit themselves with collective bargaining, and that's very sad.

Brian Lehrer: You feel like your interest as union retirees is being pitted against the interests of your fellow union members who are younger and still in the workforce?

Marianne Pizzitola: Yes, and they don't even see it coming because this is our right now, but this is their future. To try to get them mobilized that this is exactly what's happening, that their unions within the MLC-- and it's not all the unions, the municipal labor committee itself is an organization that's completely outdated and not democratic. They have 102 unions, but it's a weighted voting structure. One vote for every 250 members is their voting structure. They can pass a motion with a two-thirds vote which they can primarily do with just the teachers union, the UFT and DC 37.

Even if the other unions don't agree, and in this last vote that they had 13 unions voted yes, 17 unions voted no, 10 unions abstained and another 13 were no-shows. When you add the district council 37 locals because they also have a weighted vote in this. However, DC 37 as a whole you would use whatever the majority was. 32 DC 37 locals voted yes, 9 DC 37 locals voted no. When they say that this was an overwhelming majority, that's [unintelligible 00:09:59] because the UFT and DC 37 hold the largest amount of numbers of memberships that is why they say overwhelmingly because Michael Mulgrew can come up with several thousand numbers. It's not right.

Brian Lehrer: We'll play another clip in a few minutes of Michael Mulgrew when he was interviewed on the station a couple of weeks ago saying why he thinks this is going to be okay for the retirees. That's coming up. Before we start taking some of the many phone calls that are coming in on this, just to finish this one thought on the relationship between you all as unionized city retirees and your union leaders, do the union leaders have incentive to not represent retirees as well as current workers because the current workers get more of a vote on contracts, or they pay more in dues, or what would give the union leaders incentive to disadvantage you over current workers?

Marianne Pizzitola: Value. Retirees under New York State Taylor Law cannot be represented by their former unions. Taylor Law allows the unions to represent those in their collective bargaining unit or wages hours and work conditions. I as a retiree do not have that. This is why I find this so disturbing that the City Council will say that they still need clarity and that we should go and collectively bargain this.

We do not collectively bargain. We're retired. We made our deals, and this is up to the city to respect those decisions and not allow or engage in with our former unions to negotiate us away from value for them. [unintelligible 00:11:43] is purely putting labor against the retirees and [unintelligible 00:11:47] themselves did it. I can understand look, everyone has a financial hardship. You have inflation nearing 9% at some points, and everything is expensive these days, but retirees are on small pension.

Our pension is only raised by 1% to 3% of the CPI. Can you live on a raise of $540? It's 1% to 3% of the CPI in the first $18,000 of your our pension. This year was the first year, I don't even ever remember getting a 3% increase in a pension. A $540 doesn't really get you that far. They're definitely selling off retirees value. Michael Mulgrew said it in a video that's on my YouTube channel. He said, the city said to us, if you can give us back that 20% plan, meaning our supplement to our Medicare, we'll give you that $600 million we would've spent on them and put it in your welfare funds.

Tell me that's not a quid pro quo that they just sold us off like cattle to fund the active unions. We should be able to provide union raises to labor because they earned it, and they deserve it, and they're underpaid to begin with, but it shouldn't be about pitting your former retired labor against labor in order to fund those things. That's a disgrace.

Brian Lehrer: Structurally, if I hear you correctly, you as a retired EMT are no longer represented by your union, or the retired teachers are no longer really represented by the UFT, even though you are at their mercy to negotiate your health benefits.

Marianne Pizzitola: Yes, and this is why we relied upon a few things, legislation, litigation, and the City Council. The unions don't represent us, and that's a fact, and that is wrong, but they always looked out for a retiree because they knew they would one day be one. Victor [unintelligible 00:13:44], Lilian Roberts, all said, never touch a retiree health benefit. Yet this is exactly what's happening. Once you open this door, this is going to keep on happening. What else are you going to take from me? Yes, you're absolutely correct. Retirees cannot wait for their contracts. I don't vote for their union presidents.

There's only one union that I'm aware of in the city that allows retirees to vote in a partially weighted vote structure is the United Federation of Teachers, but they tie that union dues to healthcare benefits to keep them within the organization. The short answer is no, a union does not represent the interests of a retiree. They don't even let us in the MLC meeting. This is why we relied upon the council.

Brian Lehrer: I see, in fact, that some of the people calling in are current workers as well as retirees. We're going to see if there's a coalition forming there or if they feel like their interests are being pitted against your interests fairly. We're going to take a break here and then continue. Listeners, as some of you might be fretting over, Marianne Pizzitola's line is not so great, and we're going to reconnect, and I'm confident we're going to get her on a better line. Then we're going to go to some of your phone calls, another clip of Michael Mulgrew as this conversation continues.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're talking about the New York City plan to switch New York City public employee retirees from traditional Medicare into a Medicare Advantage managed care plan against their will to save money as part of a deal with the representing unions, with Marianne Pizzitola, President of a group that is formed around this issue, The New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees. Sarah in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Sarah, thank you for calling in.

Sarah: Oh, hi. Thank you for taking my call, Brian. I'm from the Cross Union Retirees Organizing Committee. We've been on the street for two years fighting this nonsense. Now, just a few days ago, we had a public hearing on that the Office of Labor, what's it called? The OLC was having about the Aetna contract. Now, the Aetna contract that was put on the public hearings page, and that everybody referred to the day of presenting their testimonies on this Aetna contract. Now, they're saying that that contract was erroneous, the contract that had three different options, Option A, B, and C on the attachment B of that Aetna contract.

Now, that Option C gave us the right through the Aetna contract to keep what we have. The city would have to pay an extra $20 a month for people, but that was an option that Aetna agreed to in their contract. Now [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Is that exactly what the Mayor rejected yesterday?

Sarah: Yes. He rejected it. He said Option C is not an option. However, now they are saying that a letter that they sent out dated March 10th which nobody has received yet, at least many of us have not received yet, is the real contract, not the contract that was posted on the OLR website that everybody referred to in that public hearing. If that contract was a mistake, then those hearings are invalid, and we want to find out why our union leaders, mine is Michael Mulgrew, he's one of the ring leaders in this.

He forgot that he was elected to protect our benefits, and he's in cahoots with the city to only offer us a privatized Medicare disadvantage plan. Other proposals have been [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You're calling Medicare Disadvantaged. Sarah, let me jump in and ask you a follow up-

Sarah: First of all it's not Medicare.

Brian Lehrer: Right. It's a private managed care plan that has relationship with Medicare, and there are many retirees around the country having similar battles. Also, many going into Medicare Advantage Plan voluntarily, and we'll get to that, but Sarah, let me ask you one follow-up question just relating to the part of the conversation that I was having with Marianne before the break. If you feel so betrayed by Michael Mulgrew and feel that he as a union leader is more in cahoots with management, the city in this case, than representing you, why do you think he would sell out retired members?

Sarah: Well, I think he got into trouble years ago when he decided to remove a billion dollars out of the Health Stabilization Fund that was earmarked for health benefits, and he used it to pay back pay to current teachers. Now, the rest of the MLC went along with it, because he, Henry Garrido and Harry [unintelligible 00:19:32] as Marianne said, the MLC has a weighted vote.

Brian Lehrer: All different union leaders.

Sarah: Michael Mulgrew and the other two basically decide everything. They went along with that. Now, a billion dollars is a lot of money. They decided they're going to give the city $600 million a year forever to pay them back, and to cut cost.

Marianne Pizzitola: That's interesting I say,

[crosstalk]

Sarah: Yes, go ahead.

Brian: Marianne, go ahead.

Marianne Pizzitola: She's making a good point in that, in the 2021 agreement, and when the 2018 agreement ended, the city of New York sent a letter to the Mayor de Blasio saying that the 18th agreement, the MLC agreement was completed successfully and that they met all their savings benchmarks, and they were going to implement Medicare Advantage not to meet a savings benchmark but solely to fund the stabilization fund, which we have been shown that has been misused by the city of New York and the MLC, was used for things other than it was intended to, and it doesn't serve a Medicare eligible retiree, other than those in unions and for welfare fund benefits only.

The true benefit to that fund is for active workers and some of the under-65 retirees.

Brian Lehrer: I think we have an active worker on the phone next, and Sarah, thank you for your call. Jen in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jen.

Jen: Hi. How are you? I'm Chapter Chair at Hunter College, and so I work with a bunch of active workers, and also people who are on the cusp of retirement. My union, the PSC-CUNY, has been among the unions within the MLC, who's been leading the effort against privatizing healthcare, and against what's been happening. I guess what I want to say is two things. One, this is a real violation of its promise to workers.

I see people just as what's been said, really afraid, like we're on the cusp of retirement and really afraid of what's been coming because we know there's not private business magic, that saves money, other than denying and prolonging care to people. That's really harmful. Study after study across the country, on Medicare Advantage or Disadvantage, shows that.

I want to say something else. I hope there are tons of active workers who are listening to the show right now who have things like CHI, and premium-free healthcare. Part of what we know about this sort of analysis on how to save $600 million is, we view this as the opening shot to come after premium-free healthcare for everybody because once this happens, then this door has been kicked open to say, "Okay, well, even though you work and make less money, then you would in the private sector." Like I make less money right now, working at Hunter College than I did at a nonprofit organization.

Even though you make less money, and you have premium-free healthcare as part of this bargain, your family is now in fact going to like pay-- we're now going to charge you. We've been making a deal for this as city workers, and now we see that being eroded. I hope everybody, and it's been frustrating how many active workers have not been following this issue, and it's complicated. Part of the reason why I wanted to call it in is not only to stand up for retirees but also to get every active worker and all New Yorkers to pay attention to this issue because it really matters.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Jen, let me ask you, I know that Marianne's group has been trying to rally active workers to take their side and form a coalition. I am reminded of what's going on in France, where they're trying to raise the retirement age. It's not the retirees primarily who are out in the streets, it's the active workers because they know it's going to affect them when they reach 62 or 64 years old. In that case, obviously, this is going to affect all the active workers when they become retirees, too. Are you doing this, Jen? Are you finding apathy, or are you finding interest among the current workers as yourself a current worker Chapter Chair, as you spread the word on this issue?

Jen: I certainly see interest within my union, within the PSC-CUNY of workers within CUNY, because our union has done a really good job educating members about this issue because it's really complicated, and it's hard to follow. I guess for shout-out that I would say is I really hope that UST teachers, active teachers are the group that is really paying attention to this right now because they are one of the groups, and DC 37 workers active. Because of how the MLC works, they are the workers that could really change this in the future.

I really hope they are the people that are paying attention, and they're the people with whom we need to create solidarity. I talked to DC 37 workers who work within CUNY all the time about this issue, and that's the movement we need to build, and honestly, we're really scared, and there's a lot of work to do.

Brian: Jen, thank you very much. There's a rallying cry, Marianne. I think, if I heard Jen correctly, it's that they should see this as an opening shot to privatize or add premiums to active worker health benefits, not just retiree benefits. That comes first, the rest of it may come later if this goes through. That's a powerful argument.

Marianne Pizzitola: Well, it is. We're in this situation, unfortunately, because the de Blasio administration refused to negotiate contracts with the unions, leaving them desperate to, unfortunately, make a deal like this. When you're looking at Medicare Advantage, you have the New York Times, Kaiser Health leading the way with putting out information facts, citing sourcing information, even Congress is holding hearings exactly on this.

When you start to look at the problems about this because this a national debate about this company if I were to say to you, "Hey, you're using a vendor that's been accused of fraud," would you use that vendor? No.

This is the exact situation, every Medicare Advantage company is either indicted or under investigation by the Department of Justice under investigation by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and yet, we are moving in line with this company, and forcing retirees into this one plan, who we've been trying to get the mayor to listen to us and say, "Listen, I have members right now that live in continued care community, assisted living nursing care, that this plan is not going to cover, and these are our most vulnerable. Why are you forcing us into this?"

Brian: It's not just that, you mentioned the New York Times coverage. Here's an article that they just had yesterday, headline, Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy, and that is specifically about cutting payments to Medicare Advantage Plans because they seem to be defrauding the government, overbilling the Medicare system in so many instances.

Let me ask you a couple of pushback questions. One is simply healthcare costs inflation is real, and something has to be done to control healthcare costs, managed care plans, like Medicare Advantage Plans are a central way that government, unions, private sector companies are trying to do that, how else can you save the city $600 million a year, the number that they cite, and do whatever your part is to cut back on healthcare costs?

Marianne Pizzitola: I'm going to tell you for a Medicare-eligible retiree, the cost us is less than six-tenths of 1% of the entire city budget. The retirees gave, we gave him blood sweat, tears and didn't take raises. I think coming to a retired person who doesn't have a seat at the bargaining table, you're basically selling me off to fund something. Again, I told you why we're in this situation, but to save money, how is this suddenly a crisis today? I will fully agree with you that there's issues, that healthcare is expensive, but healthcare is every mayor, since I've been reading in the archives, going back to the '60s says healthcare is expensive. That's not anything new.

That the city is all of a sudden saying there's a crisis now, where have they been for the last 10, 15 years in trying to push back and saving, trying to find savings, you're cut back in any other way. Why haven't they pushed the insurers to negotiate better with the hospitals so that they aren't getting fleeced as the MLC says, but then you're going to force me into privatize Medicare Advantage, allowing a for-profit insurer to take over our healthcare, just because it's being funded by the federal government?

I don't quite understand that. We don't typically give out handouts, but then we're asking the federal government for a handout to take care of our healthcare that the city mismanaged. Did I get that right? I'm not quite understanding that.

Brian: Well, is Medicare Advantage really that bad? The stats I see are that a large share of Medicare recipients approaching half choose Medicare Advantage Plans voluntarily when you look at the stats nationwide. Wait, because of the extra benefits that traditional Medicare doesn't cover, like vision and dental and hearing aids. Lots of folks voluntarily make that trade-off to have their choice of doctors limited in those plans, yes, and have the plan screen their tests and treatment options for medical necessity, but with so many Americans choosing that trade-off, is it so bad to be on Medicare Advantage?

Marianne Pizzitola: I'm going to say that if they're not all choosing, most of their employers are in auto-enrolling them, forcing them off their employer healthcare right now-

Brian: Both things are happening.

Marianne Pizzitola: -because of a federal rule. Yes. You do have some voluntarily going into them because of the perks that are being sold. Heck, I met a woman in Florida who says that her Medicare Advantage Plan gives her a debit card of $75 a month so she can go buy groceries. I don't think we should be trading off healthcare access to medical providers in order to get a $75 debit card. When I need a doctor I need a doctor to be able to tell me that there's a Medicare, 97% of doctors in America take Medicare. The last Medicare Advantage plan, The Alliance, only 75% of the doctors in America would accept that plan. That's a narrow network. Then that knowing that doctors can drop out of Medicare Advantage, the prior authorizations, when I'm sick and I'm getting older, I can't handle doing administrative work, having to wait for appeals and denials of care.

The Office of Inspector General found that Medicare Advantage companies are for profit, and the way that they make money is by denying and delaying your care. This is the statistic that's real. If healthcare is being denied by people and knowing that a small percentage of them do appeal, and the majority of those appeals get overturned, what does that tell you?

That this is a for-profit making scheme. That the easiest way to do this is to delay and deny you care, hoping you don't appeal. Especially when the OIG finds that the majority of the people that did appeal that they were wrongly denied or delayed their care and their denials got overturned. Why would you put a senior citizen through that?

Brian Lehrer: Let me read some tweets that are coming in. On the city and the union side, somebody writes, "Why is everyone so upset? Comparison chart similar to benefits of the GHI senior care, that's GHI, the plan that I guess the UFT members like, except maybe they made such a stink that emblem backed out, and now they will have Aetna, which is a relative unknown to the retirees.

I've been with hip/emblem Medicare Advantage for years. It's fine," says one listener. Another listener on the other side of that says, "My parents worked for the city for decades now in their 90s in the Bronx in their apartment. That Aetna plan is not accepted by any of their current doctors at a well-run clinic. The mayor and Michael Mulgrew are abandoning our elderly retired public service workers."

To that point that that listener tweets and that you raised a minute ago about what doctors are in the plan, here's another clip of Michael Mulgrew from his WNYC interview on March 10th saying this plan will serve retirees because he knows what retirees care about and they negotiate it in some relevant safeguards. Listen.

Michael Mulgrew: Right now, if you're a city retiree, the main questions our retirees are always concerned with is, may I see my doctor? We're going from 185,000 doctors in a plan to 1.2 million. We have performance guarantees with financial penalties on it if the company doesn't get everyone to either be in the plan or accept the billing.

The next piece is we wanted to grow our network because we have retirees all over the country, and we were able to grow the network immensely. I think that will be better for them. The big difference here is on a monthly basis, all of this information and data goes to a committee of which we're part of, and we can go to an arbitrator quickly for what's known as an expedited arbitration if we feel that someone's being denied something wrongly.

Brian Lehrer: March 10th, Michael Mulgrew on the station. What's your response to that, and specifically what he points out there that a very large number of doctors will be included, that's being negotiated in in a cap on how many denials of claims or service there can be without mandatory fines or arbitration built in if they don't meet the targets.

Marianne Pizzitola: First of all, we don't have to go through that procedure, any of those procedures in traditional Medicare. That he initially even has to set up something like that is a travesty that tells you he knows there's problems coming. Let's try to mitigate that by putting all these different panels and things in place in order to capture it, look at it, see if it was real. No, no, no.

My doctor should be telling me what I need. Not an insurance company, the MLC Michael Mulgrew. This is where we got to get away from this. The network is narrowed because Aetna's talking point is 88% of the doctors retirees currently see are in the Aetna network. Well, if there's 183,000 Medicare-eligible retirees, 88% of them are currently in the Aetna network.

How about how many doctors are in America that accept Aetna Medicare Advantage? That's what I would like to know because no one's answering that question because if Aetna could have said it, Aetna would've said 88% of doctors in America will accept Aetna Medicare Advantage, not saying only 88% of doctors retirees currently see.

That's an issue because I may see 10 doctors today, but as I get older or sicker, "Hey, look, I'm a 9/11 responder. We have people that are affected by 9/11 with cancers that aren't responders," and those people need their healthcare because that's their first line of defense. The city lied to us by saying, the air is safe, go back to work. The mayor won't release documents because he's saying that it would hold the city liable.

There would be a negligence claim against the city if you release those documents. That tells you he knows we are getting sick and dying because of our exposure. Those people who are not responders, they rely on their healthcare. Knowing that major cancer centers around America don't take a Medicare Advantage plan, what do you tell those people and is the city going to lie to them again?

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more retiree voice on the phones here, and then I'm going to ask you a closing question about where you go from here. I know this is not only in negotiations, it's also in court, but John in Rockville Center, you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hi, Brian. How are you? Thank you for taking the call. I'm a former president of the Captains and Down Association, New York City Police Department. Just to really hone in on what Marianne said, this happened because of what we call pattern bargaining in New York City. Once one union goes in and sets the pattern, all the other unions have to accept that.

It's a great gimmick that the city has.

All I have to do is pick off a union and then boom. That's the pattern for everybody else. Well, this time what happened is, as she said, DC 37 and the UFT combined controlled the MLC. They vote, boom, it's done. What they did, de Blasio offered the sweetener, give me $400 million in savings from the MLC, this is the contract you have. DC 37. They were happy they got it. None of the other active unions got it for their active members, just those two unions. They sold everybody else down the river, and they sold the retirees down with them. That's the actual fact, and that's the problem that we have.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you very much. What happens next? I know this is in court. I also know this is happening all across the country, many private companies that promise health insurance to retirees are forcing them onto Medicare Advantage plans to save money in exactly the same way. We've talked about that during this conversation. A, is there a national coalition that includes your group forming, or could it form to increase its clout, and what's the legal argument? You may not like that this is being done, but I know you're in court on it. How can you argue that it's illegal?

Marianne Pizzitola: We do have a national coalition that we are building because we have aligned with retirees in Vermont, Chicago, Washington, Delaware, and the states keep calling us going, how are you fighting this? What could we do? They're doing this to us. Rather than taking the easy road, municipalities know their obligation. The city of New York knew its obligation since 12-126 was legislated in 1967.

Their failure to plan shouldn't be our emergency to handle today. My organization is run on the premise that we have several different things that we can do to protect retirees. We are trying to do legislation. The city council speaker the other day on your show didn't think that this was a council issue. This absolutely is a council issue, and we rely upon her and the legislative body to protect us because that's what we have.

The council blessed us with 12-126 in 1967. They gave that to us and year after year, Mary Pinkett, who is the council person from District 2835, the same seat that currently Crystal Hudson and Speaker Adam sits in today championed retiree healthcare. I keep saying, I need my modern-day Mary Pinkett because she and Peter Malone helped protect retirees through the decades.

I know legislation is the way. We have a bill that's been sitting in the city council legislative office that requires the city to provide us with a meta-gap plan, a choice of a meta gap. Because the code is staying the same, that the city must pay for all employees retirees and their dependents up to the same amount of money, it would still be premium free.

I would advocate for savings all day long with you, just not on the backs of retired labor who don't have a seat at the table or a seat in the room. At this point, I paid my due. I want to make sure that whether I go for litigation or legislation, that we have support. The council needs to be there to help support us because we told them why we're in this situation. We've called for an investigation on the misuse of the stabilization fund, and that's fallen on deaf ears. That's not even a fund that pays for our healthcare. If you look at the cost of a Medicare-eligible retiree, like I said before, our cost to the city is less than six-tenths of 1% of the entire budget. We don't cost when an active worker costs the city. I'm tired of hearing the misinformation about, oh, it's $600 million.

According to the CAF report, the Medicare-eligible retiree's cost to the city was $439 million. Is that still a lot of money? Yes, but it's not when you take into consideration all the others. We won in court. We won twice. We won in the appellate court. Six justices, two courts affirmed that the law was broken by the unions and the city, and they've done nothing but try to go around the judge's decision, misinterpret what the judge said to try to only offer one plan. They tried to intimidate a legislative body to change the law that we won our case on.

Then when they realized they weren't going to get their way, what did they do? They eliminated every healthcare plan that was available to a retiree for whatever reason, to force them only into one plan that benefits them. That leaves many of our retirees with higher prescription costs and no access to their medical doctors or their continuing care residential communities.

Brian Lehrer: The fight goes on. Marianne Pizzitola, president of a group that is formed around this issue, the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Marianne Pizzitola: Thank you for having me, Brian.

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.