Eric Adams calls Mayor de Blasio’s NYC retiree health care shift a ‘bait and switch’
Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams said Friday that he’s “really troubled” by Mayor de Blasio’s plan to shift the vast majority of retired city workers from their current health care plans to another, less expensive option — a policy that has retirees fuming.
Adams, who’s facing long-shot Republican contender Curtis Sliwa and is likely to become the next mayor, said de Blasio’s handling of the issue highlights “why it is so important to have a mayor that was actually a union member.”
“When you start talking about cuts in health care, they’re my cuts,” said Adams at a campaign event in the Bronx. “I know what people are going through, and so we’re going to take a close examination of this because it’s going to traumatize our retirees. Some of the stories I’m hearing about increases in payments, you’re on a fixed income — this is devastating.”
Friday’s backhanded diss of the mayor was not Adams first criticism of de Blasio, a supposed political ally. In recent weeks, Adams has pointed to the rise of quality of life crimes under Hizzoner’s watch and his new policy shift on gifted and talented programs in city schools as just two areas where the two differ in their approaches.
Adams retired from the NYPD as a police captain in 2006 and is covered under his union’s health plan.
When asked about whether his health care benefits were covered by the plan offered through the union or under his current role as Brooklyn borough president, he was at first unsure, noting that he doesn’t use the benefits much. But later in the day, his spokesman Evan Thies confirmed his health care is covered under Emblem Health through the union.
Under an agreement with the Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella group for some of the city’s most powerful unions, de Blasio enacted a plan to shift most retirees’ coverage to the new Medicare Advantage Plus plan.
The policy change impacts roughly 250,000 retired city workers and gives them the option to remain in the plans they already have, with the caveat that each retiree would have to pay $191 a month or more out of their own pocket to maintain that coverage. The deadline to decide whether to opt-out of Advantage Plus is Oct. 31.
By staying in Advantage Plus, retirees wouldn’t have to pay a fee, but they’re concerned that under the new plan, they’d lose their doctors and be forced to get time-consuming pre-approvals for costly tests and procedures that might be needed on a tight time frame.
They’re also angry that de Blasio used a health care fund controlled by himself and the Municipal Labor Committee to pay out raises to currently working teachers earlier in his administration. Hizzoner rolled out that deal with the United Federation of Teachers in 2014. It awarded teachers 18% raises over nine years — with more than $1.3 billion of the money coming from the city’s Health Stabilization Fund.
“They sold everybody out,” said Richard Oliveri, a former correction officer at Rikers Island who retired in 2006, the same year as Adams. “They robbed Peter to pay Paul.”
Oliveri, who now lives in Florida, said he’s planning not to go with Advantage Plus because it will require pre-approvals, which he expects will be a problem given the fact that injuries he sustained at Rikers led him to need multiple back and neck surgeries. His wife, who’s also covered under his plan, has had several hip surgeries as well.
Union leaders like UFT President Michael Mulgrew and DC 37 honcho Henry Garrido have both assured retirees that they wouldn’t lose their current doctors under Advantage Plus, but when Oliveri asked his doctors about it, he said “they never heard of it.”
“How can they say they’re going to take it if they’ve never heard of the plan?” he said. “We negotiated these contracts when we were active and we gave up money to get better benefits.”
On Friday, Adams was in the Bronx to promote preventative health care in poor neighborhoods and communities of color. When asked about situations like the one Oliveri is facing, he suggested the current policy amounts to a “bait and switch.”
“You don’t become a civil servant to become a billionaire. You become a civil servant to have stable health care, a stable pension and a stable life, and we cannot destabilize it after they retire,” he said. “Right now, after serving your city, we should not do any type of bait and switch. When you retire, you retire with an understanding, and we need to make sure we live up to that agreement.”
De Blasio spokeswoman Kate Smart said the shift is “not a benefits cut.”
“It provides for the same or better quality health benefits for city retirees plus access to additional benefits like $0 copays for primary care visits, transportation to and from medical visits, and food delivery after hospitalizations,” she added.
During his time on the campaign trail, Adams has emphasized the need for better preventative health care, especially through a healthy diet. Adams, who’s diabetic, revamped his own diet entirely several years ago to address his own health issues and is now a vegan.
But he admitted that, if he’s elected, he’s unsure how much power he’ll have to undo de Blasio’s proposal.
“We need to, at a minimum, extend the deadline so people can have a better chance and opportunity to understand the real impact of this,” he said of the Advantage Plus shift. “I have to really look at it and see what are my powers.”
