City retirees and union members testified Monday against a proposed change to an administrative code that would shift the healthcare plan for roughly 250,000 retirees to Medicare Advantage, a privatized version of the current healthcare plan.
The city estimates the change from Medicare Advantage could provide $600 million in annual savings, but union reps charged it would do nothing more but harm the beneficiaries.
“We talk about tearing off the band-aid to deal with healthcare savings, but the proposed change just applies a different Band-Aid while inflicting new wounds,” testified James Davis, president of the PSC/CUNY union.