The Outrage: Blogging About Nothing, Blogging About Everything - Or Not Blogging at All

Friday, January 23, 2025 

I haven't been blogging too much in the past few years, especially since Arthur has been prolific and covering a lot of the same ground. I have a different take on some issues but not enough of a difference to take the time to write about it. It's not that I have nothing I want to write about but I have too much to write about and start around 5 blogs a day that I don't get to finish. 

 

I'm not big on going to rallies, marches, picket lines, etc because I see doing so as not organizing, but feel-good events. When we are helpless to do much about events, at least we do something to make us feel better. But I do have a level of outrage at everything Trump and Israel that forces me to act. The ICE (not UFT) mayhem is driving me out today for the Union Sq rally and march to Bryant Park at 4PM. And I hate the cold so I will be layering up like Raphies' brother Randy in Christmas Story.

 

I'm not sure I will make it to Bryant Park and do have to catch the ferry back to Rockaway as I have an early Saturday morning call at Brooklyn Botanic Garden where I've been in the garden guide training program since September. If we pass a diner I might try to convince Arthur to join me for a bite. Oh, and it's my wife birthday week and we went to the matinee of Hell's Kitchen the other day and loved it -- it is closing in late February and TDF is available -- we were in last row of orchestra. 

 

We had dinner in Grand Central Station, a spectacular setting, but cancelled The River Cafe for Sunday evening as I hear there is some kind of snow storm coming. Mamdani better make sure to have the streets in front of every synagogue cleaned or he will be accused of anti-semitism. 

 

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty to be outraged about the Trump-like Mulgrew at the UFT and the abusive behavior at the Delegate Assembly by Unity hacks where I witnessed the outrageous behavior of District 9 rep Aqeel Williams who didn't like it that long-time CL Thomas Hasler took a seat in a mostly empty row Williams was reserving for his minions and when Thomas didn't leave, moved over to sit next to him and invade his space by crossing his leg. 

 

Thomas raised the issue in a fabulous speech at the DA exposing Williams' behavior and criticizing the Mulgrew firings of Amy Arundel and David Kazansky but left off Ashley Rzonca and Leah Lin. I was sitting two rows behind and witnessed the entire episode and when I called to Thomas it was Aqeel who was harassing him, Williams turned around and yelled at me that he doesn't want to see his name coming out of my mouth. "Aqeel, Aqeel, Aqeel," I responded. "I pay your salary," which  is far above what the teacher top salary. 

 

Another outrage has been the legal threats by Unity directed at ABC for including "UFT" in the name, which Unity and all legacy caucuses do, clearly showing they have no fear of legacy caucuses but do fear ABC. 

"We previously shared back in December that Michael Mulgrew and the rest of UFT’s Unity leadership decided to waste YOUR dues money on having a white shoe law firm harass ABC with frivolous cease and desist letters intended to intimidate us. Unity Caucus has a long history of sending these letters to members who criticize Unity’s abject failure to deliver raises that beat the cost of living, protect our healthcare, and fight back against toxic administrators. These letters invariably warn of legal action if the criticism continues. Well guess what? We’re calling Unity’s bluff. ABC has retained legal counsel — paid for out of our own pockets — and sent the UFT’s attorney the letter pictured below. We DARE Mulgrew and Unity to file suit against ABC. We have already beat them in arbitration and are more than happy to replicate that outcome in court. Mulgrew and Unity have bullied the UFT membership for far too long. This is only the first step in putting a stop to that behavior for good".

Read the entire letter:

A Letter to Unity from ABC's Lawyer

A Better Contract

Jan 22, 2026

ABC has also taken the lead in a petition campaign calling for fee-free healthcare - almost 5,000 have signed. https://stopchargingretirees.org/

Unity Caucus Favors Co-Pays: NYC Educators Penalized for Retiring - Sign the Petition

Then there is the outrages Marianne Pizitola exposes almost daily.

Debunking the WHW Part 3 with Evidence!: Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare and NOT an Advantage

Marianne Pizzitola

 

I'm not finished with my outrages. I have not been happy with the performance of the Retiree Advocate and it's control of the Retired Teacher Chapter Executive Board and delegates, both of which I am a member of. The unwillingness to confront Mulgrew publicly but they are willing to write a strongly worded letter, which they then claim has scared Mulgrew. They remind me of the Dem Party leadership scaredy cats. Schumer for next RTC leader?

 

I have too much to say about why but have to start bundling up for today's rally and march.

 

Speaking of strongly worded letters. A final outrage of the day is toward the Democratic Party - where the Republicans criticiee healthcare officials and the Dems defend them- this from Politico 

Defending Healthcare Execs: Why Democrats Lose

Politico: A MESSAGING TWIST ON HEALTH INSURERS — Republicans and Democrats swapped their typical positions on health insurers in back-to-back hearings Thursday as they laid the groundwork for midterm messaging, Kelly Hooper reports. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees went on the attack against five insurance CEOs for prioritizing profits over patients. Meanwhile Democrats sympathized with the executives, arguing that they served as useful scapegoats for the GOP amid the fight over reviving expired Obamacare subsidies. “This is not your fault — this is the Republicans’ fault,” Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone said to the leaders of UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, The Cigna Group, Elevance Health and Ascendiun. “Don’t let them drag you in here and blame you for what’s going on.” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith later chastised Pallone for the comments. “Instead of demanding answers, a senior Democrat reassured our CEO witnesses this morning, saying, ‘It’s not your fault,’” Smith said at his committee’s hearing. “Maybe because Democrats know it’s their fault.” While Democrats were keen to blame Republicans for failing to address spiking insurance premiums, the two parties found common ground on hammering the executives for their lavish salaries. 

Final Note:

In 2013 I posted 827 blogs. In 2025, 78. So far this year, 2. The numbers began to drop off in 2019 and took a big hit during the pandemic years. Am I too busy? I was busier from the time I retired in 2002 through 2019. Does less busy = less blogging?  I find myself doing everything I can to avoid blogging. Night time is out due to evening fuzzy brain syndrome and I watch trash TV, which means political shows 'till 11:30 followed by old movies. 

My brain works better in the morning - theoretically. I watch Morning Joe, then listen to Brian Lehrer, then Sam Seder Majority Report -- which takes me followed by Breaking Points, which takes me to the evening. So UFT politics, which has been the essence of this blog, takes second or tenth place. I've also been working out a bit. And physical therapy for my knee and I've had a big belly hernia due to weakened muscles from my operation. I'm debating another operation to fix it but that would knock me out of being super active for up to 3 months. 

Just count yourself lucky I'm not including a photo of my hernia.

 

Unity Caucus Favors Co-Pays: NYC Educators Penalized for Retiring - Sign the Petition

Tell Michael Mulgrew and Unity to stop charging retirees premiums while claiming our health plan is premium free. Let’s send Unity a message to respect us. Let’s tell them we demand what other unions have. The UFT Welfare Fund is sitting on over a billion dollars. Let’s tell them how we’d like it used. Let’s tell them that the very worst time to impose premiums on us is when we retire. Let’s tell them if other unions can better support retirees, we can too. DC37 doesn’t charge members for prescription insurance when they retire. Firefighter and police unions don’t do it. Sanitation, and other unions don’t do it.... Arthur Goldstein

 Sign the petition. 1,575 have signed in 24 hours -  let's hit 5k.

Imagine a world where UFT would fight like the Nurses Union. Those nurses don’t play around. They are standing on business!! I love it....Anon. FB quote 

ABC's Leah Lin tells it all: Paying more in retirement just doesn't make sense.  

Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026

 

I just finished 3 months of physical therapy for my knee, twice a week, at $15 co-pay a pop -- that's $30X12 weeks = $330 for my "premium free" healthcare. Plus all the other doctors I go to --- It's probably close to $500 given visits for my cancer and diabetes (due to removal of over half my pancreas). Listen, I can handle it all financially at this point, but for many NYC retirees these co-pays are a real burden. I've even heard stories of people who expected to retire are forced to hold off. 

 

I'm proud of my colleagues at ABC are at least making a stink of this while other supposedly opposition groups are fundamentally silent. My sense is that the non-Unity leaders of the RTC, many of whom defended the new healthcare plan, seem reluctant to be openly critical.

 

Today is an RTC Executive Board meeting and I'm looking forward to some action beyond a lot of whining over Mulgrew not calling on them at the DA. I detect a hint of fear that if they are too publicly critical of  the Unity leadership and Mulgrew, who has elements of Trump-like vindictiveness, he may turn off the lights and heat to their offices at 52 Broadway. I'll bring candles.

 

Arthur Goldstein authored a summary cross posted on the https://stopchargingretirees.org/ site: Should NYC Educators be Penalized for Retiring? Do you want to pay at least $180 a month, forever, when you retire? If not, please sign and share our petition. Please sign our petition demanding UFT stop charging retirees, some of whom are already struggling to get by. Please tell your friends to sign and share widely.

 ------

Here's a message from on the new PPO Plan. I logged on and found that one of my diabetes meds is not on the forumulary as a 1MG but is as 2 MG. We were promised the new plan would not result in changes. 

 

York City Municipal Employees & Retirees

 

January 1st the new NYCE PPO plan was implemented for all active workers, and Pre-Medicare Retirees.   In a few weeks, we will roll out a survey to see if you are having any concerns that need to be addressed.  

January 1st also began the new Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) for those in the NYCE PPO plan, or those who are on the City Drug plan, the optional rider.  The new PBM is "Prime Therapeutics" - no longer Express Scripts.  They are the MANAGER...   Think of them like the middle man to your drug access.  A simple way to understand their job - they get you access to the drugs..   You have the drug manufacturers, the PBM and the Pharmacy.  

 

 

 

 

This was prepared by Bob Pfefferman as a briefing report prior to a meeting with newly elected City Council member Virginia Maloney. He invites questions and comments. 

 

Briefing paper, January 7, 2026, V3

 

The unions’ claim that they can negotiate for current retirees is specious for all of the following:

 

·      There is no such thing as a collective bargaining certificate for retirees.

 

·      Except for UFT retirees, we have no say in electing the union leadership. Even then UFT retiree votes are capped at a certain number.

 

·      To my knowledge, neither OLR or the MLC have cited a specific section of the Taylor Law that 1096 violates.  Any legal memo the city or the unions have is not public so no one can comment. Would you accept an unsupported allegation like this in a high school debate class?

 

The unions don’t mean this as a policy discussion. It is meant to intimidate any city council member that asks too many questions and threaten with a primary challenge.

 

·      When a union does negotiate, at least in my local, 371, AFSCME (DC 37), the members approve the collective bargaining demands. No such vote was held.

 

·      The results of any collective bargaining from an AFSCME entity holding a collective bargaining certificate must be approved by the membership. No such vote has been held.

 

·      Christopher Marte’s office has cited a US Supreme Court ruling Chemical Workers V Pittsburg Glass, 1971, in which it ruled that retiree benefits are not negotiated by a union

 

·      Marte also points out that in the past DC 37 and the UFT have supported city council legislation protecting retiree health care and never cited the Taylor Law. Because unions cannot bargain for retiree health care, the city council must pass legislation to change it.

 

Status of Lawsuits (Brentkowski case; I don’t know how to spell it)

 

·      Marianne’s group filed a lawsuit in September 2021 saying that the city cannot only offer one health insurance plan for retirees and must offer traditional Medicare and a wrap around. They cited 12 “causes of action” why the city could not do what they wanted.

 

·      The trial judge ruled “irreparable harm” and issued a TRO. He only ruled on one of the 12 causes of action. The city appealed and four years later, the Court of Appeals overturned the trial judge’s ruling and sent it back to the trial judge for ruling on the other 11.

 

·      Should the city and/or the unions (one entity for this purpose) be so reckless as to try this again, the trial judge would likely issue another TRO and the city and the unions will be wandering in a judicial morass for another two or three years with an uncertain outcome.

 

·      Retiree will not accept a Medical Advantage Plan as the only option for health insurance. We will fight this politically and legally. The city council has already seen what we can do. Do you really want to try it again?

 

The Comptroller’s Audit

 

·      The audit confirmed what retirees have been saying since 2021: that the fund was knowingly misused by the MLC and OLR and lacks transparency.

 

·      OLR tried to cover this up by submitting false annual certifications to the Comptroller’s Office, asserting in writing that the Fund is in compliance with Directive 27 requirements, that Fund balances are accurate, and that the Fund will be used for its stated purposes.

 

·      The audit also found that HISF lacks transparency and has inadequate governance and decision-making capacity. HISF does not maintain meeting agendas, materials distributed at meetings, or records of discussions held at meetings—such as recordings, minutes, or notes—and stated that it relies on HISF’s monthly reports which include only the Fund’s revenue, expenses, and cash balance.

 

·      Furthermore, while the $600 million would have improved HISF’s financial position somewhat, it was not sufficient, on its own, to keep HISF solvent

 

·      As detailed in Table XV in the audit, OLR and the MLC did not report significant HISF liabilities as required by Comptroller’s Directive 27 and GSAB Statement No. 54.

 

Garrido Speaks Untruths

 

·      In February of 2021, Henry Garrido reported to his delegates (I am one) that he was shocked, absolutely shocked, to discover that the HISF was bankrupt and retirees would have a new, improved health plan.

 

·      I spent almost two years plowing through federal legislation and virtually nothing he said checked out. The HISF did not suddenly go broke, and the new plan was only better in the warped minds of Garrido and Michael Mulgrew.

 

·      For example, they touted free gym membership but never reported on how many retirees not currently belonging to a gym would enroll. I believe that the number would have been miniscule and almost everyone who would enroll would drop out after a few months of basically not using it. And which gym? Not Equinox.

 

The Management Benefits Fund offers gym reimbursement but it is capped at $50 per month. Someone claiming such a benefit has to keep records and file a claim.

 

·      I then discovered that the new plan would be administered by a for-profit private insurance company accountable only to its shareholders. The newspapers over the past year or two have been bursting reporting on the fraud riddling these plans. In the 2006 amendments to the Medicare Act (best known for creating Medicare Part D), it was an experiment to see if private for-profit companies could deliver high quality health care and have cost-savings as well. It’s no secret that this experiment has failed.

 

·      Unanswered is why the union leadership was comfortable consigning retirees to a fraudulent system where the profits depended on denying care recommended by medical professionals.

 

·      Garrido got one thing right: the HISF was created to cover health insurance expenses for actives and retirees. I incorrectly thought it was created only for retiree health care.

 

·      I have an incurable but treatable neurological disease and I go three times a month for infusions. The price per infusion for the uninsured is $45K. Medicare pays about $7K. You can imagine the lack of enthusiasm that a private for-profit insurance company will have for such treatment.

 

Other reasons we need 1096:

 

·      The initial number cited by the city and the unions was $600M, however that was calculated. Henry Garrido reported to his delegates in the spring that because of DC budget actions that number was now $300M, however that was calculated.

 

·      Assuming that $300M has not vaporized further, we know from years of reports delivered to his delegates by Henry and from other sources that whatever number is being conjured by the MLC’s consultants, was going right back into the same slush fund bankrupted by the city and the unions.

 

The Thieves Have a Falling Out:

 

·      Now there is a falling out among the thieves over an alleged $4B, give or take $1B, in health care savings that the parties failed to generate in allegedly contractual commitments.

 

·      Henry Garrido has publicly and privately reported that he has in writing that the unions have been relieved of any commitment to save the $600M (or $300M. Or whatever number they are flying this week) by forcing retirees into a Medicare Advantage Plan. So the current $$$B squabble has absolutely nothing to do with retirees and we will not take the fall.

 

The Thieves Open The Backdoor

 

·      Frustrated by their unsuccessful attempt to steal health care directly from retirees, they have resorted to slapping $15 co-pays on every medical interaction after the deductibles are satisfied. This piles fees on top of one another so prevalent that retirees cannot afford them; you can’t tell where one stops and another starts.

 

·      The “lucky” ones have incomes so low that they are dual eligibles (Medicare and Medicaid) if you are callous enough to call being living in poverty “lucky.”

 

·      The rest of us have to pay deductibles that are not reimbursed, Rx drug co-pays that are not reimbursed, transportation, vision above what is reimbursed, dental above the cap, and front $2430.80 for 12 months’ premium before being reimbursed. This comes to about $5,000.

 

·      The 27% of city retirees who exist on pensions of $15K or less (even with a reasonable amount for social security added) simply can’t afford it. The 57% with pensions of $35K or less, with an appropriate amount for social security, aren’t doing so great either.

 

·      The contract for the wrap-around, currently GHI/Emblem Health Senior Care, will be re-bid this year. I an working on a table, not straightforward, showing how devastating the co-pays have become. I will forward when ready later this week.

 

·      I, personally, begin the year with 86 co-pays: 36 for the above mentioned infusions and 50 for weekly psychotherapy. That’s $1290 (minus the deductibles.) Now, I’m in physical therapy twice a week. This is a heavy hit. There is no indication that the unions will reduce the out-of-pocket in the bid document. I wonder who they think they represent: the taxpayers or their former members.

 

They have no shame:

 

·      DC 37 ought to be ashamed.  Most low-income retirees are their former members. They are stealing money from those who can least afford it to subsidize taxpayers. (If not for the co-pays, the premiums paid by the city likely would be higher.)

 

·      While DC 37 and other unions’ welfare funds provide an Rx benefit (with co-pays), many other retirees have to purchase city of New York Rx Part D with a 2026 monthly premium of $180 (some of which is reimbursed by the city or various union welfare funds). They also may face a Part D surcharge that is not reimbursed.

 

What can the city council do?

 

·      Enact 1096 which will end any discussion of a Medicare Advantage Plan or co-pays.

 

Bob

917-733-0925

 

MulgrewCare Update: We Owe $3.1 Billion - Explosive Audit Urges Dissolving Insolvent City Employee Health Fund

They (the City + MLC) lied to us and misused the Healthcare Stabilization Fund. This has ultimately affected our healthcare benefits and us paying more and more out of pocket.

Contact the NYS AG’s office, the DOL and Congress representatives.

Name the fish and win a free sub to Ed Notes

 

Demand further investigation, increased transparency, and increased oversight and regulation. These are our dues and tax dollars. Now they want a self-funded NYCEPPO plan? Why would anyone trust them to manage this properly?

This vindicates our reporting abt the bulk transfers of cash to @DC37nyc & @UFT’s welfare funds. Both now sit on a billion $ in assets — while members not seeing much more in benefits.

https://thewire.educators.nyc/.../the-fund-is-about-to...

Also from the audit: The new self funded NYCEPPO plan is still not enough to pay for how much they are in the RED!

Why would anyone trust these 2 parties as constituted to manage this new self-funded plan properly?

Meanwhile @UFT and @DC37nyc sit on a billion dollars in their welfare funds from HSF?!

Read the audit here:

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/.../audit-of-the-financial...

Daniel Alicea, EONYC and ABC

 

What next? $1000 dollar co-pays? 

Lander Confirms Unity and MLC Frittered Away Stabilization Fund Now as then, they demand we TRUST them Arthur Goldstein Dec 30

They took a fund designed to keep member health costs down, made ridiculous deals with the city to fund raises with it, and watched it dwindle down to nothing. This has now been confirmed in an audit by city Comptroller Brad Lander. In 2014, MLC geniuses decided to fund raises by giving the city a billion dollars from the Stabilization Fund.

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025

 

This broke today and luckily we are having an in-person group getting together for lunch this afternoon and can reaffirm the history even as Mulgrew will claim a "false and biased probe from the comptroller." I remember him mocking us for claiming he wiped out the stabilization fund --"You think cops would let me take out millions?" Apparently they did.

 

This is what RTC/RA should be raising hell about but most of them do not see Unity as an enemy. And when I get up and scream at the Unity gang that have stabbed us in the back while defending Mulgrew at every turn -- like the Trumpies do for their leader no matter what he does --- I get yelled at by both Unity and some of the leadership of RTC for being "uncivil." I intend to be uncivil to people who tried to kill me. 

 

And let's give some credit to the gang at ABC who have been digging at the healthcare issue from the very beginning while some retiree leaders bought the Mulgrew line hook, line and sinker. 

 

 

Arthur: 

remember all that talk about how this scheme was better than Medicare, which city employees had for years? Remember Mulgrew, lying that all the doctors who took Medicare would accept it? It’s now official—this whole dance was about covering their dumb asses for the stupid deals they made behind our backs. Meanwhile, as the Stabilization Fund is broke, our Welfare Fund sits on a billion dollars. Mulgrew and his MLC cronies oppose 1096, claiming they need to negotiate our health care for us. After all, who else but they have had the vision to run it into the ground?

And more from  Daniel at Educators of NYC also posted

The Healthcare Fund They Quietly Decided to Kill

Leaked audio featuring MLC lawyer, Alan Klinger, leaves many asking: Did ‘Three Men in A Room’ collude to kill the NYC Healthcare Stabilization Fund?

For years, city workers and retirees have been told a familiar story:

Healthcare concessions were necessary, painful but unavoidable, and required to generate “cost savings” for the City. We were told these sacrifices were about sustainability. About protecting benefits. About avoiding worse outcomes.

We needed to save and replenish the depleted NYC Healthcare Stabilization Fund – or it would collapse, and we would have no choice but to pay healthcare premiums.

But buried in plain sight is an admission that turns that entire narrative on its head.

In a recent closed-door Municipal Labor Committee meeting, MLC and UFT attorney Alan Klinger acknowledged that a central goal of the City–Union Tripartite Health Committee was not to save the Healthcare Stabilization Fund (HSF)—but to eliminate it altogether.

Not through open debate. Not through a vote of the MLC body. But through a quiet, structural decision made by a tiny group of three individuals operating far from rank-and-file eyes and ears.

 

 And THE CITY SCOOP.

by Claudia Irizarry Aponte Dec. 30, 202 Dear New Yorkers,

An explosive audit from City Comptroller Brad Lander released today urges dissolving a fund that helps finance city employees health benefits, concluding that it is billions of dollars in the red after being tapped for years by municipal unions and mayors in labor bargaining.

Declaring the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund "insolvent," Lander’s auditors determined that the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund owes the city $3.1 billion, not counting obligations to vendors that have yet to be tallied for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

The probe paints a picture of the city and municipal unions using the fund as a virtual piggy bank, authorizing $4.3 billion in payments from 2001 to 2024. Meanwhile a 2014 labor deal reduced the city’s obligations to pay into the health fund — ultimately shrinking the fund’s balance by $3.3 billion.

And it reveals that the city unions scrambled to set up Medicare Advantage as a cost-savings health plan for retirees as part of a gameplan to replenish the rapidly depleting

The audit’s existence spilled into public view when THE CITY obtained audio of an internal union meeting — and prompted the municipal unions in an internal memo to decry what they called a "false and biased" probe from the comptroller.

Read more here about the billions of dollars in the balance.

 

Comptroller Lander Attacks Plans to Reduce Medicare as he Declines to Register Medicare Advantage Contract Pending Litigation

“As a matter of public policy, beyond the scope of our office’s specific Charter responsibility for contract registration, I am seriously concerned about the privatization of Medicare plans, overbilling by insurance companies, and barriers to care under Medicare Advantage.... Recent investigations identified extensive allegations of fraud, abuse, overbilling, and denials of medically necessary care at 9 of the top 10 Medicare Advantage plans, including CVS Health, which owns Aetna.  ... ‘Once corporations privatize every inch of the public provision of health care, we may never get Medicare back... Brad Lander

Wow! Brad Lander goes on my very small list of politicians I still vote for.... NYC Retirees

Friday, June 9, 2023

Good news. With the deadline to opt out (June 30) of MulgrewDisadvantateCare fast approaching, Brad Lander tosses a monkey wrench into the Mayor Adams/MRC/UFT deal to drag city retirees out of Medicare into the privately managed, profit making Aetna plan, due to take effect on Sept. 1. As you can see above, Lander went further than just talking about the specifics but went after the general attack on Medicare by the insurance lobby and its allies - our own union.

Fundamentally, the UFT/Unity backing of this change is anti-union and anti-worker. But with a union leadership that dovetails with the corporate wing of the Dem party, why expect anything else? We've noticed that some of the rhetoric coming from the mouth of Randi Weingarten and crew turn calls for Medicare for all into MedicareAdvantage for all --- meaning the standard neo-liberal attacks on government run programs as Medicare is. 

Last week, the lawsuit was filed by retirees and yesterday a bill was supposed to be introduced by Charles Baron to the city council, with a large demo outside of retirees but that was postponed until next week - most likely June 22 - Thursday. It's important to have big crowds at these rallies -- politicians notice.

With Adams facing an election in two years, I imagine Lander has put himself into the running as retirees will vote heavily to oppose Adams and Lander just gave himself a leg up. Yes, politics do matter. Even it we don't win the medicare case, we can punish Adams in the next election - and Mulgrew too - both in 2025.

But there is some skepticism in that the Mayor can overrule Lander and will probably do so, so don't go crazy. However, Lander went much further than the narrow legal issues and raised crucial points we have been trying to raise at the UFT - that they were helping kill the only public option. 

Nick has notes at NAC on the story:

New Action – UFT

Mulgrew: the Comptroller is worried about MAP. Why aren’t you? -

Yes, Mayor Adams may reverse Lander’s decision. But we now have well positioned allies refusing to sign off on retiree healthcare cuts. And that bodes well for the future, even if it does mean our dear beloved Unity-led UFT leaders may need to find their ‘healthcare savings’ elsewhere, as their debt to the City passes its due date. And yes, with the spotlight on retirees, we should expect those cuts to land on in-service teachers, who have been promised the absurd: an ‘equal or better replacement to GHI at 10% cheaper of a cost.’

When will that replacement be announced? You better bet it won’t be until after Mulgrew tries to ram through a mediocre contract—and that process will start as early as next week. So, before we vote on a TA, let’s make sure we ask – what will only 90% of our current health plan look like, and how will we afford it on a pay-cut?

Make no mistake: we can’t win the battle against healthcare cuts solely on the good graces of well-positioned politicians. Ultimately, we need to situate ourselves to be able to stop anti-labor backroom deals. As Mulgrew is keen to remind us at DAs and executive board meetings, health care is a part of our overall compensation. Well, we vote on whether to accept what the City offers us in economic compensation. So, both now and when we’re retired, we deserve a vote on changes to medical coverage too. Since UFT leadership doesn’t see the problems everyone else sees with reducing our coverage and tossing retirees onto MAP, we need a formal and permanent mechanism to keep them from doing so.

I'm hitting all my docs before Sept. 1 - braving the smoke today to keep a cardiology appointment - I do preventive maintenance - like having my car checked regularly. I think today is a stress test which I think will show I have slowed down since the last one -- I'm thinking it's my weight which I can't seem to lose - probably due to the cheese cake at UFT Ex Bd meetings. Or maybe it's the stress of seeing my own union try to reduce my healthcare.

The email below was sent by a large medical group here in Delray Beach regarding their feelings about Aetna.  It's an important read regarding their past dealings with Aetna.  

 

Here is Lander's complete statement:

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2023

Chloe Chik, (646) 761-2914 cchik@comptroller.nyc.gov press@comptroller.nyc.gov

Comptroller Lander Declines to Register Medicare Advantage Contract Pending Litigation

New York, NY – The Comptroller’s Office declined to register the City’s contract with Aetna to transfer City retirees to a Medicare Advantage program for their health care coverage. A pending lawsuit, brought on behalf of retirees, questions the City’s authority to enter into such an agreement.   Comptroller Brad Lander issued the following statement:  “The Comptroller’s Bureau of Contract Administration carefully reviewed the City’s contract with Aetna and returned the contract to the Office of Labor Relations without registering it. Pending litigation calls into question the legality of this procurement and constrains us from fulfilling our Charter mandated responsibility to confirm that procurement rules were followed, sufficient funds are available, and the City has the necessary authority to enter into the contract.  “As a matter of public policy, beyond the scope of our office’s specific Charter responsibility for contract registration, I am seriously concerned about the privatization of Medicare plans, overbilling by insurance companies, and barriers to care under Medicare Advantage.   “I appreciate the work of the Municipal Labor Council and the Office of Labor Relations to negotiate improvements to the Aetna contract to address some of the concerns raised by retirees. However, the broader Medicare Advantage trends are worrisome. Recent investigations identified extensive allegations of fraud, abuse, overbilling, and denials of medically necessary care at 9 of the top 10 Medicare Advantage plans, including CVS Health, which owns Aetna.   “As health care activist Ady Barkan wrote last month, noting that half of Medicare enrollees nationwide have been transferred from traditional Medicare to private Medicare Advantage plans: ‘Once corporations privatize every inch of the public provision of health care, we may never get Medicare back.’”

###