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To the editor:
The unions pushing the Medicare Advantage plan state only 66,000 retirees are against this plan, but the unions neglect to state that more than 184,000 elderly and disabled retirees who are on a low fixed income are being coerced by either accepting this plan or paying a monthly $191 for the retiree and $191 for the retiree’s spouse to continue with the traditional Medicare plan that as a retiree you already earned and paid for.
How many retirees can afford to pay almost $400 dollars a month from their meager pensions? City officials threaten that if retirees do not participate in the plan, retirees will not be entitled to the 365 day Senior Care hospital rider.
Fear tactics are being used to confuse and force retirees into accepting something that they did not want. What kind of choice is that?
The false narratives being pushed by the city and the unions need to be addressed and corrected immediately. Let’s call it what it is… A ripoff of retirees!
The New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees brought a lawsuit against the city in this matter. Retirees need to know how they can mobilize to support those efforts to get the proper representation because retirees need “a big, aggressive dog” in this fight.
What’s to stop the unions and the city from making active employees their next target in this fiasco? If the unions and the city are concerned about helping the retirees, they should provide retirees with an annual cost of living commensurate with inflation, something retirees can live on.
DB Brugman
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Joel Frank
Effective January 1, 2023, Social Security recipients will see an adjustment of 8.7% which applies to their entire Social Security check.
Compare this humane way of treating seniors to the formula used by the State of New York: A New York public pensioner can expect to receive no less than a 1% nor more than a 3% adjustment to his/her fixed pension. To be entitled to an adjustment the inflation rate must be double. In order to get 1% the inflation rate must be 2%. In order to get the maximum adjustment of 3% the inflation rate must be 6%. And then to add insult to injury the pension upon which the adjustment applies is arbitrarily set at $18,000. The most one can expect is 3% of $18,000 or $540.00. This original formula is 22 years old. It's time to adjust the formula.
Sunday, November 27, 2022 Report this