City Comptroller Brad Lander took the unusual step Thursday of refusing to register Mayor Adams’ plan to switch the city’s 250,000 retired workers into a privatized, cost-cutting version of Medicare.
In a statement, Lander said he’s using a rarely-invoked City Charter authority to reject a contract inked by Adams that’d let private health insurance giant Aetna administer a Medicare Advantage Plan for the city’s retired workforce. Lander said he’s doing so because he’s concerned about “the legality of this procurement” due to a pending lawsuit filed against Adams by a group of retired municipal workers who fear his Advantage plan would ruin their health care benefits.