Demonstrators protested towards the mayor’s plan to shift public-sector retirees to Medicare Benefit on Thursday, March 9, 2023.
File picture By Dean Moses
The latest announcement of Speaker Adrienne Adams trying to drag a last-minute change within the Metropolis Council Guidelines screams of an eleventh-hour energy seize to hurt individuals who didn’t help her or curry favor for those who did.
These modifications, if made, would block payments like Intro 1096 to guard NYC Retirees’ earned and vested Medicare advantages and forestall them from being compelled into medical debt due to choices made by Mayor Eric Adams and Renee Campion of the Mayor’s Workplace of Labor Relations. Or Ryder’s Legislation to guard the Central Park horses. These payments are fashionable with the folks and lots of council members, however the Speaker might block them from the eyes of democracy to get her manner.
That is what bullies do – block the wants and needs of the favored vote to serve their very own function, no matter which may be.
Now we have been attempting to guard our earned Medicare advantages for over 4 years and cease predatory prices being charged to us, placing us into medical debt. Intro 1096 ought to have been one thing the speaker supported, not simply because she might be eligible for Medicare in December, however as a result of Medicare was one of many best Civil Rights Achievements ever.
She has not taken a stand on this, and a reminder, Medicare can also be a Democratic occasion platform. Not defending us from being bulldozed into the default plan in Venture 2025 or medical debt, I’ve to ask why? Does she have one thing to realize? Is she currying favor with DC37’s Henry Garrido, who helped her grow to be the speaker by getting all her friends to step down?
I additionally don’t imagine the speaker cares concerning the medical debt NYC Retirees are experiencing after being hit with these predatory prices for the primary time since Medicare was handed in 1967, the wrongful delays and denials of care that include Medicare Benefit, that the mayor was attempting to pressure us into. She additionally doesn’t seem to care that, if compelled into Medicare Benefit, many people would lose our trusted medical doctors and hospitals that don’t settle for the plan.
If she did care, she had 4 years to do one thing to assist, however I imagine her attempting to alter the present council guidelines proves my preliminary thought is correct.
Does the speaker of the Metropolis Council not care concerning the lives of NYC retirees, the aged, disabled, 9/11 responders/survivors, and line-of-duty widows?
In two months, Adrienne Adams might be a Medicare retiree, like 250,000, and like Eric Adams, who turned 65 on Sept. 1. Possibly they each ought to ask folks how they like being on Medicare Benefit and never with the ability to get off it. Or being denied care, like for New Hampshire State Consultant Jen Coffey, who, due to her pre-existing situations, can by no means get a complement for Conventional Medicare. Her Medicare Benefit plan threatens her for talking out and denies her the therapy her physician prescribes.
Possibly Adrienne and Eric Adams ought to communicate with Megan Bent, whose father, Gary, was a state of Connecticut physicist, who was auto-enrolled right into a Medicare Benefit plan just like the one the mayor was attempting to pressure on us, and after mind surgical procedure, refused to approve his rehab. Gary died. These denials have been carried out by synthetic intelligence.
Possibly she ought to communicate with MTA retiree Julio, who was compelled onto Aetna Medicare Benefit, and he was denied rehab after hip substitute.
Or Yvonne, who was denied an inside pacemaker, they usually informed her to put on a vest that can shock her coronary heart if it stops beating. A hurricane rolled in, and she or he couldn’t cost her vest as they misplaced energy for 2 weeks.
Or Luis, additionally an MTA retiree, whose medical doctors don’t settle for Aetna Medicare Benefit. He has to drive over an hour to see a health care provider who does. Luis is in his 70s. If he have been on conventional Medicare, his physician could be 5 minutes away.
Or Margaret, who’s in medical debt, has to go to a meals pantry to feed her and her husband, and secured a part-time job in a facility for elders with cognitive impairments like her husband. Margaret is in her 70s as properly, and makes a $26,000 pension.
The very last thing NYC, our metropolis, wants is an assault on democracy from inside. The Metropolis Council is configured to guard us from that. Speaker Adrienne Adams: Go away it alone, and register for Medicare identical to the remainder of us.
Marianne Pizzitola is president and founding member of the NYC Group of Public Service Retirees.
