By GREGORY N. HEIRES
A few hundred city retirees attended a court hearing March 21 on a lawsuit challenging the city’s plan to force its retired workers into a private Medicare Advantage health plan.
The lawsuit, one of three filed by the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, aims to block the city’s plan to terminate the traditional Medicare coverage of former municipal employees in order to reduce health-care costs by, the city says, about $600 million a year.
Attorneys representing the retirees and the city appeared before a four-judge State Supreme Court Appellate Division Panel that will issue a decision on whether the city can move forward with its controversial plan.
At issue is whether the switch from government-run Medicare to a privately-administrated Medicare Advantage plan violates a decades-long city policy guaranteeing that it would provide lifelong health-care coverage for its employees.
In its lawsuit, the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees has submitted affidavits of hundreds of retirees attesting that they were told they could count on the coverage when they joined the city workforce. Traditionally, workers who choose to enter public service accept lower salaries than their counterparts in the private sector as a tradeoff for job security and a rich benefits package, including pension and health care.
Richard Darsing the city’s attorney, said the city was not legally bound by such a guarantee on health-care. Under questioning by the judges’ panel, he acknowledged the city had not provided the court with a single affidavit from a city supervisor to that effect.
Jake Gardener, the retirees’ attorney, said that when they entered the municipal workforce, retirees were told that if they spent their career with the city, they would receive lifelong Medicare and supplemental health-care insurance.
“This promise was made for 57 years,’’ he said. “They built their lives around it.”
After the hearing retirees gathered in a park nearby the courthouse at 27 Madison Ave. in Manhattan for a rally.
Marianne Pizzitola, president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, joined Gardener to thank the activists for showing up to the hearing. Gardener suggested that the turnout could influence the panel’s decision by showing that the dispute about health-care coverage is not an abstract issue but one that deals with “real human beings.”
Indeed.
“They will be killing retirees who are denied access to care,” said retiree Lainie Katt, who was represented by Teamsters Local 237 while she was employed at New York City Housing Authority. Katt worked at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attack, and she now receives weekly treatment for T-cell lymphoma.
“If they take away my Medicare coverage, I don’t know how I would survive,” said Katt, who said she is not eligible for the federally-funded program for 9/11 workers.
“My doctors have told me that they will not take Medicare Advantage,” Katt said.
Gardener told the activists that the panel could make its decision soon or after several months. No matter which way the rules, the decision will face an appeal, he said.
Newcrossroads blogger Gregory N. Heires is a former president of the Metro Ny Labor Communications Council. He is a member of the coordinating committee of the advocacy group Labor for Traditional Medicare.
