Sunday, April 16, 2023

AOC OPPOSES PRIVATIZED MEDICARE (MULGREWCARE) FOR CITY RETIREES

This is from the NY Post:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a swipe at both Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s union leaders — sharply criticizing a controversial plan to move 250,000 city retirees off traditional Medicare and into a privately managed version of the program.

Further down:

It’s a bad decision. It is not good,” Ocasio-Cortez said about the change in health coverage for retirees during a virtual town hall Thursday.

“This is something I oppose. We are in this fight with you and we oppose this shift.”

Private health insurer Aetna will manage the Medicare Advantage program.

And more from AOC:

Monthly bills on paper are lower but she warned retirees will get socked with higher bills if they’re hospitalized for a serious illness.

“A lot more of those costs are going to get moved onto you and moved onto seniors and retirees in a shift to Medicare Advantage,” she said, adding it’s “very concerning” the program will be run by a for-profit private insurer.

“This [Medicare Advantage] is a cash cow for them [private insurers]. It’s very profitable,” she asserted.

Please note that Aetna, besides being for profit, is a non union company. Emblem GHI, though not even close to being a perfect insurer, is at least a not for profit, unionized organization.

We are happy to have AOC on our side. Progressive support for traditional government run Medicare is essential. Right wing advocacy is helpful too.

This is from Republican Councilmember Vickie Pallidino's Twitter:

I am proud to be endorsed by the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees. 

I have fought hard to protect the healthcare and rights of our municipal retirees who have faced unprecedented challenges recently, and I proudly accept this endorsement and look forward to continuing the fight with them in my next term.

We all need to get involved in this fight. Sign the petition to get UFTers a vote on our healthcare. Next, come to our Zoom on Tuesday evening to find out how to help spread the word so we have enough UFT signatures to have that vote.

4 comments:

Jeff said...

Now AOC, one the dumbest and most useless, is who we bow down to...Cool. The UFT keeps getting better and better if you choose her over your own "UNION."

James Eterno said...

AOC and Paladino from the left and the right are opposing the mayor and the MLC leadership on our healthcare. This is significant. If you don't want to see it, just stay in the binary world of Democrats bad, Republicans good. It's more complex when you think about who our friends are on the Medicare issue.

ed notes online said...

Of course a male right winger would brand a woman of color as dumb. She is one of the sharpest politicians around and your bias just gets in the way.

liberals=ccp2323 said...

ed she is so sharp lol., Defunds the police, loses 25,000 Amazon jobs, and has an investigation into her using funds inappropriately.

On top of that when she speaks to her constituents, they are pissed because she is perpetuating war. If you voted for Biden to allow the puppet to cause 2 years of financial hell, open borders, ww3 etc you are dumb