Ahead of Trump’s Attempts to Privatize Medicare, Lander Reaffirms Commitment to Stop Municipal Retirees from Being Forced Into Medicare Advantage; Vows to Preserve Traditional Medicare Benefits
In 2023, Comptroller Lander rejected the Adams-backed contract that would have forced 250,000 retirees onto a privatized Medicare Advantage plan
NEW YORK — Today, Brad Lander reaffirmed and extended his longstanding commitment to ensuring that New York City’s 250,000 municipal retirees retain the healthcare benefits they were promised, and that they are not forced onto a privatized Medicare Advantage plan, which would constrain them to a smaller network of providers and increase denials of care.
“When Mayor Adams submitted the Medicare Advantage contract to my office in 2023, I rejected it,” said Brad Lander. “As Mayor in 2026, I will honor our retirees’ service to our city, and live up to the promises we made to them.”
The Comptroller’s Office declined to register the contract that the Adams Administration sought to enter into with Aetna to implement the Medicare Advantage plan in June 2023. In December 2024, a New York Court of Appeals blocked the Administration’s effort to stop paying for retirees’ traditional Medicare coverage, in order to force them onto a Medicare Advantage plan.
In a letter sent today to the NYC Organization of Public Sector Retirees, Lander made the following commitments to New York City’s retirees:
The Lander Administration will protect retirees’ access to the traditional Medicare and Medicare supplemental plan that they have had in the past.
The Lander Administration will hasten the timing of reimbursements to retirees for their outlays for co-payments, beginning with lower income retirees, so they do not have to wait over a year in some cases.
The Lander Administration will work to create a 30-or 60-day grace period for a grieving family to seek other health insurance upon the death of a municipal retiree.
The Lander Administration will maintain a working relationship and constructive dialogue with retirees to address other issues as they arise.
Lander, citing the memory of Ady Barkan, a health care activist who died in 2023, after a 7-year battle with ALS, said: “The last fight of my friend Ady Barkan’s life was against the privatization of Medicare, which he knew would lead to denials of care and overbilling by insurance companies. As he wrote, ‘Once corporations privatize every inch of the public provision of health care, we may never get Medicare back.’”
One of the most significant duties of the Comptroller’s Office under the City Charter is to invest and protect the retirement security of New York City’s municipal workers. Under Lander’s leadership, the City’s five pension funds have grown to record levels (currently over $285 billion), with annual returns (10% for the FY 2024) that have outpaced peers, beat benchmarks, and enabled the City to guarantee retirees’ pensions while also saving City taxpayers over $2.5 billion over the past two years.
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