Portside

Retired New York City Transit workers are charging TWU Local 100 President Richard Davis with being in “denial” and taking the entire union “backwards” following an appearance on WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” radio show earlier this week.

During his interview with host Bob Hennelly, Davis insisted his decision to surrender Traditional Medicare coverage at the bargaining table in favor of a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan  beginning at the start of this year constitutes an “enhancement” of benefits. 

“He said that there would be no diminishment of the health benefits for the retirees, which is very untrue,” TWU Local 100R President Lloyd Archer told Work-Bites on Tuesday. “A lot of states do not take Medicare Advantage. That is not an enhancement, that is a diminishment of the benefit. A lot of people are having problems with their prescriptions. They have to wait for approval from the insurance company to get their prescription. That's another diminishment.”

TWU Local 100R is the group of retired MTA New York City Transit workers who, like their municipal counterparts challenging Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing campaign to force an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan on 250,000 city retirees, have organized in an all-out effort to oppose their union leadership’s push for profit-driven health insurance coverage.

Up until the advent of Medicare Advantage, MTA New York City Transit had been covering the 20 percent of healthcare costs Medicare was never designed to cover.

Archer further said he recently received a call from another retired Transit worker who was denied approval for the walker he needs just to get around. Archer himself, waited four months to get the CAT scan his doctor ordered because of the prior authorizations he is now subject to under Aetna’s Medicare Advantage plan. 

Work-Bites previously reported on the serious problems TWU Local 100 retirees now residing in other states are having accessing the care they need. And while Medicare Advantage exists in all 50 states, a growing number of doctors and hospitals are becoming so fed up with the delays and denials of care associated with the profit-driven plans—they are refusing to accept them all together. 

“When [Richard Davis] talks about how there’s no diminishment in this crap—he’s full of it,” Archer added. 

TWU Local 100 retiree Paul Rosenberg told Work-Bites Davis “probably broke the law by negotiating for retirees” because the union no longer represents workers once they retire. 

“Davis has been going around doing ‘shop gates’ touting how this Medicare Advantage plan is an enhancement—it’s not,” Rosenberg said. “It’s private—whereas, traditional Medicare is accepted at ninety-nine percent of health care facilities [around the country]. Medicare Advantage plans must reduce benefits to pay their stockholders. Depending on what state you live in, you may have to drive hours to find a doctor who accepts this plan. Davis took this union back to 1965 before traditional Medicare was implemented—that’s 59 years!”

During his appearance on WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” show, Davis also touted the “concierge service we created that has people there to help anyone that needs help” and that at “this very moment, we don’t see any issues that our retirees are having.” 

But Medicare Advantage opponents insist there are seventy-three-million reasons why they don’t see any issues. That’s the amount of money Davis and TWU Local 100 are reportedly saving MTA bosses by forcing retired Transit workers into Medicare Advantage.

According to them, Davis and the rest of the TWU Local 100 leadership “sold out” retirees for the cost savings and to give active workers modest raises. 

“Why would you sell out the people that actually paved the way for you and walked picket lines for you so that you can have benefits and wages when you came on the job?” Archer added. “You gave those vulnerable people right up because you couldn't negotiate with the Transit Authority to get your active members a raise.”

Municipal retirees have long-insisted the heads of New York City’s most powerful public sector unions adopted a similar tactic when they went all in on Medicare Advantage more than three years ago, in an effort to save the mayor a supposed $600 million a year in healthcare costs.

“Richie Davis didn’t enhance anything but his ego,” New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees President Marianne Pizzitola told Work-Bites. “Medicare Advantage is known nationally as a predatory health plan. He literally liquidated his retirees’ earned health benefits for raises for active workers and forced his people into managed care with a narrow network and prior authorization diminishing their access to care and medical providers.”

Contrast that with Subway-Surface Supervisors Association President Mike Carrube, however, who has made it clear he isn’t going to surrender real Medicare to MTA bosses to fund raises—and is even changing his union bylaws to prevent any of his successors from ever giving up the coverage. 

“A retiree is a retiree—end of story,” Carrube told Work-Bites last week. “I’m a firm believer that if your retiree membership does not vote for a contract then no president or any presidential administration should ever give up or negotiate away a retiree's lifetime benefit—because [retirees] don't vote.”

Pizzitola further pointed out that “Traditional Medicare beneficiaries do not need a union ‘concierge desk’ or the Aetna Medicare advantage rep to help push through care ordered by our doctors.”

“And it’s absurd,” she said, “that he has not heard retirees complaining about how crappy this plan is. He took dignity and respect from his members–this is NOT about “fear of change.” Richie [Davis], [UFT President] Michael Mulgrew and [DC37 Executive Director] Henry Garrido all use that Aetna talking point, and quite frankly, it is bullshit. Experts testified before Congressional hearings on the harm and loss of life Medicare Dis-Advantage plans cause.  Richie is in his own bubble.”

Davis also told “What’s Going On?” host Bob Hennelly that “people have to adapt to the new environment.” 

“We are adapting,” Davis continued. “That’s one of the things I look forward to doing in the future is to make sure I can educate in how to adapt to what the current situation is because every day TWU is evolving.”

That view echos the same sentiment CWA Local 1180 President and Municipal Labor Committee Trustee Gloria Middleton expressed last year when she told Work-Bites, “We have to deal with these insurance companies. We have no choice in that because that’s the world.”

In Archer’s view, TWU Local 100 is definitely not evolving—it’s capitulating and “digressing.” 

“They're not evolving to anything,” the 65-year-old retired bus operator told Work-Bites. “They're going backwards because this time, it was the retirees. The next time, what's going to happen to the active members? Because you already dumped us [retirees] into this [profit-driven Medicare Advantage] program.”

TWU Local 100R continues to build opposition to the Medicare Advantage push and is in court attempting to win back their Traditional Medicare benefits.

Courts in New York have already delivered as many as 10 rulings in favor of city retirees who contend Mayor Adams’ ongoing drive to try and force them into an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan represents a diminishment of their existing Medicare benefits. 

“We have affidavits from many retirees unequivocally testifying that this plan is harming them,” Pizzitola added. “And just because they are not complaining to his “concierge hotline” at the union—which does not represent them in retirement under the law—doesn’t mean there are not retirees suffering from his decision. For some, this plan works for now, until it doesn’t. For others, it’s killing them now. Richie [Davis] is in a state of denial–it’s not “change” these retired unionists fear–it’s dying or being denied care because Aetna’s death panels determine what care is medically necessary, and acts as a gatekeeper between their life and their doctor’s orders."

“When [Richard Davis] talks about how there’s no diminishment in this crap—he’s full of it,” Archer added.