The recent announcement of Speaker Adrienne Adams attempting to pull a last-minute change in the City Council Rules screams of an eleventh-hour power grab to harm people who didn’t support her or curry favor for the ones who did.
These changes, if made, would block bills like Intro 1096 to protect NYC Retirees’ earned and vested Medicare benefits and prevent them from being forced into medical debt because of decisions made by Mayor Eric Adams and Renee Campion of the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations. Or Ryder’s Law to protect the Central Park horses. These bills are popular with the people and many council members, but the Speaker could block them from the eyes of democracy to get her way.
This is what bullies do – block the needs and wishes of the popular vote to serve their own purpose, whatever that may be.
We have been trying to protect our earned Medicare benefits for over 4 years and stop predatory costs being charged to us, putting us into medical debt. Intro 1096 should have been something the speaker supported, not just because she will be eligible for Medicare in December, but because Medicare was one of the greatest Civil Rights Achievements ever.
She has not taken a stand on this, and a reminder, Medicare is also a Democratic party platform. Not protecting us from being bulldozed into the default plan in Project 2025 or medical debt, I have to ask why? Does she have something to gain? Is she currying favor with DC37’s Henry Garrido, who helped her become the speaker by getting all her peers to step down?
I also do not believe the speaker cares about the medical debt NYC Retirees are experiencing after being hit with these predatory costs for the first time since Medicare was passed in 1967, the wrongful delays and denials of care that come with Medicare Advantage, that the mayor was trying to force us into. She also doesn’t appear to care that, if forced into Medicare Advantage, many of us would lose our trusted doctors and hospitals that do not accept the plan.
If she did care, she had four years to do something to help, but I believe her trying to change the current council rules proves my initial thought is accurate.
Does the speaker of the City Council not care about the lives of NYC retirees, the elderly, disabled, 9/11 responders/survivors, and line-of-duty widows?
In two months, Adrienne Adams will be a Medicare retiree, like 250,000, and like Eric Adams, who turned 65 on Sept. 1. Maybe they both should ask people how they like being on Medicare Advantage and not being able to get off it. Or being denied care, like for New Hampshire State Representative Jen Coffey, who, because of her pre-existing conditions, can never get a supplement for Traditional Medicare. Her Medicare Advantage plan threatens her for speaking out and denies her the treatment her doctor prescribes.
Maybe Adrienne and Eric Adams should speak with Megan Bent, whose father, Gary, was a state of Connecticut physicist, who was auto-enrolled into a Medicare Advantage plan like the one the mayor was trying to force on us, and after brain surgery, refused to approve his rehab. Gary died. Those denials were performed by artificial intelligence.
Maybe she should speak with MTA retiree Julio, who was forced onto Aetna Medicare Advantage, and he was denied rehab after hip replacement.
Or Yvonne, who was denied an internal pacemaker, and they told her to wear a vest that will shock her heart if it stops beating. A hurricane rolled in, and she couldn’t charge her vest as they lost power for two weeks.
Or Luis, also an MTA retiree, whose doctors don’t accept Aetna Medicare Advantage. He has to drive over an hour to see a doctor who does. Luis is in his 70s. If he were on traditional Medicare, his doctor would be five minutes away.
Or Margaret, who is in medical debt, has to go to a food 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 well, and makes a $26,000 pension.
The last thing NYC, our city, needs is an assault on democracy from within. The City Council is configured to protect us from that. Speaker Adrienne Adams: Leave it alone, and register for Medicare just like the rest of us.
Marianne Pizzitola is president and founding member of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees.
