What Would Mary Pinkett Do? Speaker Adams Says City Council Action Would Only Complicate Medicare Advantage Fight
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams says getting involved in the Medicare Advantage fight “only threatens further complications.”
By Joe Maniscalco
Throughout the four-year battle to stop New York City from pushing municipal retirees into a predatory Medicare Advantage health insurance plan and blowing up what used to constitute “a good city job” for generations of New Yorkers—City Council Speaker and now mayoral hopeful Adrienne Adams has stood on the sidelines and worked hard to make sure her fellow legislators remained there, too.
Back in March 2023, the Speaker said she was “leaving this conversation to the parties to collectively bargain at this time." Forget that the issue of healthcare retirees already earned on the job is not subject to that collective bargaining process.
Six months later, Civil Service and Labor Committee Chair Carmen De La Rosa refused to give Intro. 1099 a hearing—the predecessor to the retiree healthcare bill presently languishing in the City Council—because Speaker Adams didn’t want to advance a bill—whether it was aimed at stopping the Medicare Advantage push or not.
And in December, Speaker Adams told Work-Bites the City Council was “watching the court proceedings” and would “continue to do our part to monitor the situation.”
Well, on Thursday, May 15, the New York State Court of Appeals heard final arguments in Bentkowski v. City of New York—one of two remaining cases retirees have before the courts. The other is a challenge to the copays the City was eager to start imposing on retirees in anticipation of “transitioning” them into an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan.
A third case was already decided in December—in favor of retirees. In all, retirees fighting back against the Medicare Advantage push have racked up 11 court victories.
With litigation finally wrapping up, Work-Bites wanted to know if Speaker Adams would now allow Intro. 1096—the current retiree healthcare bill— onto the floor for a hearing. Retirees fighting to keep the City-funded Medicare supplemental insurance they earned on the job view passage of the bill crucial to the fight no matter which way the Court of Appeals rules in Bentkowski. But as of this writing Intro. 1096 still has just 14 cosponsors.
City Council Member Darlene Mealy was briefly on the bill before withdrawing her support last week.
"There are multiple lawsuits regarding retiree healthcare and the Council doesn’t want to add another,” Speaker Adams told Work-Bites following Thursday’s final arguments. “The Council interfering as an external party with legislation only threatens further complications that would prolong the court battles, blocking all parties, including retirees, from the resolution they deserve. Ultimately, the mayor’s office must solve this issue as the entity of city government responsible for these employee and retiree benefit decisions.”
Mayor Eric Adams, however, showed no signs of backing off on the Medicare Advantage push following last week’s final arguments in Bentkowski. Instead his office told Work-Bites, “We continue to pursue the Medicare Advantage plan—which would improve upon retirees’ current health plan and save hundreds of millions of dollars annually—and await the court’s next decision this year.”
All that’s in sharp contrast to the leadership late New York City Council Member Mary Pinkett, former chair of the Civil Services and Labor Committee and the Committee on Governmental Operations showed before she passed in 2003. Pinkett championed hard for retiree’s Traditional Medicare benefits and fought to further codify them in 2001.
Mayor John Lindsey originally made sure the City of New York covered the cost of Medicare Part B for municipal retirees way back in 1967, a couple of years after Medicare was first ushered into law with significant help from organized labor.
“The City Council has abandoned its responsibility and past practice under the legacy of the great Mary Pinkett who served in the City Council from 1974 to 2001,” New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees President Marianne Pizzitola told Work-Bites this week. “Mary and (former) Speaker Peter Vallone championed the last amendment to protect Retirees in 2001. Speaker Adrienne Adams knows this history because we educated her on this—and of course, she has city employees who have told her the same thing. This information currently resides on the City Council website.”
Of course, 60 years ago, organized labor championed Medicare—the closest thing the U.S. has ever gotten to universal healthcare. Today, however, many labor heads are running away from Medicare as fast as they can. District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, and recently-retired Municipal Labor Committee Chair Harry Nespoli—were the prime movers behind the privatization push in New York City.
Mulgrew only backed off—officially—when Medicare Advantage foes took control of the 70,000-member UFT Retired Teachers Chapter last year. Garrido continues to tout Medicare Advantage to anyone willing to listen.
Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] organizer Sarah Shapiro was part of that successful UFT Retired Teachers Chapter effort, and says Adrienne Adams is simply “passing the buck as usual.”
“I would like to know if she becomes mayor will she finally do something for us municipal retirees or will she just keep passing the buck? Based on her history I assume she will do nothing. That's why I will never vote for her,” Shapiro told Work-Bites.
Pizzitola further says that the head of the New York City Council “abdicated her responsibility out of loyalty to the unions who fund her campaign and helped her get elected speaker.”
“She forced us to litigate because she refused to use the power that she had to protect us,” Pizzitola added. “She’s passing the buck to Eric Adams when she always had the power to fix this—and she refused because of her loyalties. That’s not leadership.”
District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido last month endorsed Speaker Adams as the union’s top pick for mayor in the June 24 Democratic Party Primary.
State Senator Pete Harckham, meanwhile, suddenly dropped sister legislation to Intro. 1096 in the Senate last month, which was intended to shield municipal retirees from Medicare Advantage statewide. That, after winning an endorsement for re-election from New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento.
“What we have today aren’t real labor leaders,” Pizzitola said in response. “We have corporatists who are willing to get into bed with management to sell off retirees workers’ benefits to finance their own.”