NYC Retirees Are Victorious Against Mayor Eric Adams Medicare Advantage Push
By Wendell Potter
June 23, 2025
Retirees across the country who have been fighting efforts by their employers to move them against their will into private Medicare Advantage plans got a monumental win on Friday.
After a years-long, contentious battle with New York City’s municipal retirees, Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday afternoon that his administration was pulling the plug on a scheme, initiated by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, that would have forced 250,000 of the city’s retirees into an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan.
We first reported on this nearly two and a half years ago in a story about the efforts of a scrappy, tenacious group of retirees to get Adams to back down. For years, the city has been subsidizing retirees’ Medicare supplement policies, enabling them to remain in traditional Medicare and avoid high out-of-pocket costs when they need care. Adams and De Blasio had claimed the city could save $600 million a year by moving retirees into Medicare Advantage, which, unlike traditional Medicare, makes patients get pre-approval from an insurer for a long list of treatments and medications. Numerous studies have shown that people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans frequently encounter prior-authorization denials, forcing patients to go without needed care or to go deep into debt to get it. Also unlike traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans exclude many doctors and hospitals from their networks. Almost all health care providers participate in traditional Medicare.
Adams said Friday afternoon, just two days after a court ruling that would have enabled him to move forward with the forced migration of retirees to Medicare Advantage, that the city has found other ways to save money. He added:
We have heard concerns from retirees about these potential changes at numerous older adult town halls and public events, and our administration remains focused on ensuring that New York City remains an affordable place to live. Thankfully, we have found other ways to address health care costs while providing quality health care coverage for our city’s workers, and we have decided not to move forward with the Medicare Advantage plan at this time.
Adams was referring to an announcement earlier this month that the city is working with insurers to redesign health benefits for current municipal workers and save the city $1 billion a year.
Adams’ capitulation represented a huge victory for the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, a grassroots organization led by Marianna Pizzitola, a retired fire department emergency medical specialist and comprising thousands of retired EMTs, firefighters, cops, teachers and other city workers.
A big reason why the organization was ultimately successful was the broad ideological span of its membership. As Pizzatola told me in January 2023:
I stay out of the fray of political bias. We have a large number of members on the left and right. But we are aligned on a mutual message. Medicare Advantage was supposed to be an option and not just imposed on us. Despite any differences we may have, we can all unite behind that.
Knowing of my concerns about Medicare Advantage from my two decades working for big insurers that sell MA plans to seniors and employers, Pizzitola asked me to testify before the New York City Council in early 2023. I was blunt in my remarks:
Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. And I should know. I helped to sell it.
So I implore you not to vote in favor of herding the city’s retirees into Medicare Advantage plans. Doing so will not make retirees healthier. But it will make the bottom line of big insurance corporations much healthier – with the hard-earned tax dollars of the people of this city.
To its credit, council members ultimately decided not to endorse the Adams administration’s plan to move retirees to MA. But the retirees would have to go on to fight the move in the courts. They won all of their legal challenges except the one Friday morning that gave Adams the green light to go forward. Hours later, Adams, who is up for reelection this year, surprised everyone by announcing his decision not to…
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