Doing the Cortlandt Street Shuffle

To the editor:

The appointment of Liz Vladeck as the Office of Labor Relations’ next commissioner is an opportunity to reset the broken relationship between OLR and retirees. Outgoing Commissioner Renee Campion dismissed the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees in 2022 as “a small group of retirees” and aligned with the Municipal Labor Committee to force retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan."

Even today, the adversity continues. Many retirees are facing what NYCOPSR President Marianne Pizzitola calls a “billing nightmare.” Due to billing issues between Emblem and healthcare providers, many retirees are overpaying when tendering $15 copays upfront and/or receiving inaccurate invoices from their doctors.

NYCOPSR has reached out to OLR for months to find a resolution, to no avail. OLR prefers to put the burden on retirees to fight their doctors to get their money back.

Deputy Commissioner Claire Levitt would not be missed by retirees if she is replaced. She has championed increasing copays for behavior modification. In a memo to former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018, Levitt and Robert Linn hailed that “copays were adjusted to create economic incentives to encourage the appropriate use of healthcare.”

Copays for emergency rooms were increased in order to shift utilization away to primary care. Unfortunately, retirees later found $15 copays waiting for them.

Mr. Linn, hanging on as a special consultant to the mayor, may be someone else whose expiration date has passed.

For forty years he has opposed pay parity for FDNY EMS first responders. There has been no contract since 2022. Ambulance responses times have increased and there are retention problems.

Marianne, a former EMS responder said in an interview on WBAI’s Labor and Healthcare Confidential program: “They can’t increase staffing because no one wants this job because it pays so poorly.”

Harry Weiner