State Legislators Pledge to Champion NYC Retirees Fighting to Save Traditional Medicare Coverage
State Senator Joseph Addabbo meets with New York City municipal retirees on the New York State Capitol’s Million Dollar Staircase on Mar. 24. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
“We can make this happen.”
That was the hopeful message State Senator Joseph Addabbo [D-15th District] delivered to New York City municipals retirees in Albany this week to continue fighting for statewide legislation protecting the Traditional Medicare coverage they earned after decades on the job.
“It’s gonna take some effort,” the Queens representative told retirees gathered on the Million Dollar Staircase inside the New York State Capitol on Mar. 24. “But if we speak rationally, and lay it all out how we can work with each individual, the union, the governor’s office, the assembly and the senate—we can make this happen.”
Previous efforts to pass statewide legislation protecting civil service retirees from being stripped of their Traditional Medicare coverage and pushed into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan failed last year after pushback from New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento.
Cilento, along with New York City Municipal Labor Committee heads Henry Garrido and Michael Mulgrew, argued that retiree legislation at both the state and city level would violate the Taylor Law and undermine collective bargaining rights.
Garrido, executive director of District Council 37, and Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, continue to push that same argument today.
New York City municipal retirees who’ve spent the last several years beating back the Medicare Advantage push—and ultimately forced former Mayor Eric Adams to abandon the scheme—counter that the only thing legislation protecting their health care undermines is the ability of union heads like Garrido and company to sell them out.
“Promises Made, Promises Kept!” New York City municipal retirees fighting for new legislation to protect their Traditional Medicare coverage rally on the State Capitol’s Million Dollar Staircase.
“At this stage of our lives time is of the essence,” retired city paralegal Mary Kanigher said on Tuesday. “We depend on Traditional Medicare that will not reject us. I’m asking [our elected officials] to protect health care that retirees were promised—not force us into a plan that will reduce our coverage, and prevent us from being pushed into medical debt. Don’t break that promise. A promise was made—and by right—the promise must be kept.”
Marianne Pizzitola, retired EMS worker and President of the New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees, said municipal retirees are not “looking to create conflict.”
“We want our lawmakers to work with us—not around us,” she said. “We want transparency—not backroom decisions we’ve been seeing for the last 10 years. We want protection from being forced into plans that can put us into financial hardship. No retiree after decades of service should be put into debt just to stay healthy. That is not how this system works. That is a system that fails the very people it was meant to protect.”
“They wanted to charge me a thousand dollars for an injection—that’s disgraceful. The time has come for the legislators of this state to stand up with us.”
Ninety-three-year-old retired teacher Evie Jones-Rich said that she was recently charged $1,000 for a single injection.
“I have lung cancer, I have breast cancer, the cancer has moved to my spine—but it hasn’t stopped me,” she said on Tuesday. “It’s because of the doctors who work in Traditional Medicare promised to us based on our toil, in my case 30 years as a teacher, that I survive. The alternative is so-called ‘Medicare Advantage.’ It’s ‘Medicare dis-Advantage’ because I cannot survive with doctors who are out of network. They wanted to charge me a thousand dollars for an injection—that’s disgraceful. The time has come for the legislators of this state to stand up with us.”
Assembly Member Charles Fall [D-61st District] pledged to champion new legislation in Albany as municipal retirees loudly chanted “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” from the Million Dollar Staircase.
“You have served our city for decades—whether you were law enforcement, whether you were on the job with the Fire Department, whether you were in our classrooms as teachers, staffers, city professionals—you gave so much to the city,” the Assembly’s Deputy Majority Leader said. “It’s important that we recognize that, and we address any of those issues that they’re trying to make to your health benefits.”
Elderly retirees, Pizzitola stressed, are being asked to take on financial burdens they simply cannot afford to bear.
“We all know about retirees either picking up half prescriptions or cutting their pills in half. It means choosing between medical care and basic necessities. It means anxiety replacing the security that we were promised—and that’s not right.”
“Being on a fixed income, it means choosing between care and basic necessities,” she said. “And we all understand that because we all know about retirees either picking up half prescriptions or cutting their pills in half. It means choosing between medical care and basic necessities. It means anxiety replacing the security that we were promised—and that’s not right.”
The New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees sent three buses to Albany on Tuesday to push for statewide legislation to protect their Traditional Medicare coverage. The organization also continues to push for passage of Intro. 1096—local legislation from Council Member Christopher Marte [D-1st District]—that would require the City of New York to offer Medicare-eligible municipal retirees and their Medicare-eligible dependents “at least one MediGap plan with benefits equivalent to or better than those available to city retirees and their dependents as of December 31, 2021.”
Anna Berry [l], 93-year-old Evie Jones-Rich [r], and fellow retirees arrive in Albany after a four-hour bus ride from New York City on Tuesday.
“If New York cannot keep its word to the very people who serviced it, what message does that send to the next generation of public workers?” Pizzitola continued. “We see that now—the city still has a 25,0000-head count shortage. Who will choose a career in public service if the guarantees made today can be taken away? This is bigger than retirees. This is about trust in government. This is about integrity. This is about whether a promise still has value in the State of New York.”
Newly-Minted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned in part on a platform opposing Medicare Advantage, but has steadfastly refused to meet with the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees to discuss Intro. 1096.
In November 2024, then candidate Mamdani told Work-Bites, he supported the “spirit” of the bill, but that if elected, “it would not even be required given what my policies would be on the issue.”
Last August, Council Member Marte called former Mayor Adams’ reversal on Medicare Advantage “a huge victory for city retirees”—but went on to say “we have to codify this position as soon as possible” because “at any moment, this Mayor or a future Mayor can reverse positions and try again to put retirees on Medicare Advantage or an equally dangerous plan.”
Two months into office, Mayor Mamadni suggested dipping deep into the Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund [RHBT] in an effort to help plug what he called a “historic budget gap” totally some $12 billion.
That move prompted condemnation from Stu Eber, President of the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations [COMRO].
“Meet the new boss—same as the old boss,” Eber told Work-Bites. “Eric Adams campaigned on rejecting Medicare Advantage, then let his budget office bamboozle him and the MLC into doubling down on depriving retirees of the Medicare coverage we were promised in order to pay for raises and supplementing union welfare funds. Outgoing Comptroller Brad Lander documented the sacking of the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund, whose intended purpose was balancing premium rates. Now Mayor Mamdani is proposing to deplete our Trust to close the budget gap. This smells like the budget office continues to disregard the health and economic security of one of the City's most vulnerable populations.”
Pizzitola called on elected officials in Albany to fulfill their responsibility to retirees who helped build—and after 9/11—rebuild New York.
“We showed perseverance and that is the same thing our own municipalities should show to us,” she said. “We didn’t walk away from our responsibilities. We filled them each and every day—day in, day out—year in, year out. We are now asking you to fulfill yours. Keep that promise—protect retiree health care and ensure no retiree in the State of New York is forced into financial debt just to stay alive.”
New legislation from Addabbo and Fall protecting retiree health care statewide will reportedly have to wait until it passes a “fiscal review” process Governor Kathy Hochul is now mandating for all new bills before it can officially be introduced.