In this substack by the NYC Editorial Board, Alyssa Katz asks Senator Ramos how she will address the hole in the budget left by our Court decision.
This question is leading and patently false. The City of NY raided the Healthcare Stabilization Fund to give raises to active employees. Then the City quietly (and during the pandemic) cooked up this scheme to replace retiree’s traditional Medicare with a for-profit Medicare Advantage (MA) plan. We paid into Medicare our entire working lives. We were promised healthcare. We were told that the Medicare Advantage plan would be superior to our current plan of Medicare and our supplemental insurance. IT IS NOT!
Under MA there are prior authorizations (insurance company decides what is necessary, not your doctor). No prior auths with traditional Medicare.
Under MA, doctors must be in-network. No networks with traditional Medicare.
Under MA, retirees who live across the US may be forced to travel hours to see a doctor who is in the network. Almost all doctors accept Medicare.
We need journalists to get this right. Two good places to start are NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees and Wendell Potter’s Substack “HEALTH CARE in-covered”
Regarding the "hole" that will be left in the NYC budget due to the court decision about retiree health care: I agree with another comment that the question is misleading and inaccurate. Retirees have been guaranteed this money for decades. To try and take it away and then say putting it back would create a hole is a misrepresentation. I'd like to point out, too, that while 600M does sound like a lot of money, it represents only a little over one half of one percent of the annual NYC budget, but concerns the lives of about 250,000 retired men and women.
In this substack by the NYC Editorial Board, Alyssa Katz asks Senator Ramos how she will address the hole in the budget left by our Court decision.
This question is leading and patently false. The City of NY raided the Healthcare Stabilization Fund to give raises to active employees. Then the City quietly (and during the pandemic) cooked up this scheme to replace retiree’s traditional Medicare with a for-profit Medicare Advantage (MA) plan. We paid into Medicare our entire working lives. We were promised healthcare. We were told that the Medicare Advantage plan would be superior to our current plan of Medicare and our supplemental insurance. IT IS NOT!
Under MA there are prior authorizations (insurance company decides what is necessary, not your doctor). No prior auths with traditional Medicare.
Under MA, doctors must be in-network. No networks with traditional Medicare.
Under MA, retirees who live across the US may be forced to travel hours to see a doctor who is in the network. Almost all doctors accept Medicare.
We need journalists to get this right. Two good places to start are NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees and Wendell Potter’s Substack “HEALTH CARE in-covered”
I love these interviews and look forward to all the upcoming ones. Did I miss questions? I saw 0 about education.
Regarding the "hole" that will be left in the NYC budget due to the court decision about retiree health care: I agree with another comment that the question is misleading and inaccurate. Retirees have been guaranteed this money for decades. To try and take it away and then say putting it back would create a hole is a misrepresentation. I'd like to point out, too, that while 600M does sound like a lot of money, it represents only a little over one half of one percent of the annual NYC budget, but concerns the lives of about 250,000 retired men and women.
Thank you for the second in a series of great interviews. You all are doing a tremendous service in filling the large gap left by the NYT