A Message to NYC Council

 

After consultation with our legal team, we offer you this information. On December 15, 2022, Martin Scheinman issued a 31-page document that has no force of law.  As the signature page at the end explains, it is just a “Recommendation.”  Scheinman has no authority to order the City and the MLC to force retirees into Medicare Advantage, which is far worse than the traditional Medicare benefits that retirees have long received.

As he admits, Scheinman’s limited authority comes from a 2018 Agreement between the City and the MLC.  Under Section 5 of that Agreement, he and two others member of the “Tripartite Health Insurance Policy Committee” are authorized to “make recommendations to be considered by the MLC and the City.”  The Agreement does not allow the Committee, let alone Scheinman alone, to order anyone to do anything.  Moreover, the Agreement requires the Committee to make “recommend[ations] for implementation as soon as practicable during the term of this Agreement but no later than June 30, 2020.”  Thus, not only are recommendations non-binding, they are now two-and-a-half years too late.

Some have attempted to make Scheinman’s document seem more consequential than it really is by calling it a “decision” or “order” or “award.”  However, it is none of those things.  It is just a non-binding (and untimely) recommendation, as the document itself makes clear.  Although the 2018 Agreement allows Scheinman to arbitrate certain disputes between the City and the MLC, there was no dispute between the City and the MLC here – both are aligned with respect to forcing Medicare Advantage on retirees.  Thus, Scheinman was not acting as an arbitrator and was not issuing a ruling, decision, or award on anything.

Scheinman’s document is a transparent and futile attempt to make it seem like the City is being ordered to take away traditional Medicare from Retirees.  The document does not—and cannot—require the City, or anyone else, to do anything.  If the Mayor wants to take away the healthcare rights of elderly and disabled retirees, he should not pretend that anyone is making him do it.  And the City Council should not assist him in this charade by amending Section 12-126.

The City Council should not participate in the illegal effort to force Medicare Advantage on Retirees, who are entitled to the traditional Medicare benefits they were promised and which they desperately need.  Let the Mayor be the one to strip retirees of these hard-earned benefits.  The retirees will challenge him in court, and they will win.  Again.  But if the City Council amends Section 12-126, the path to victory in court becomes much harder.  Give retirees the chance to fight and win in court with the current version of Section 12-126, which has existed for over half a century.  If they lose, the City Council can always amend the statute later.