Eric Adams gets big win from court in retired NYC worker health care battle — but most of his rivals vow to kill it anyway
Mayor Eric Adams scored a massive legal win in the controversial battle to move retired city workers to higher cost health-care plans — but nearly all the candidates running to replace him as mayor are already planning to stop the move in its tracks.
The Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the city could shift retirees to Medicare Advantage plans – a private healthcare program that utilizes Medicare subsidies in lieu of traditional Medicare and supplements – after years of fighting by retiree advocacy groups.
The ruling found that retirees who sued over the change had insufficiently argued that adopting the advantage plans would lead to worsened care and that assurances that the city would keep them on Medicare plans wasn't legally enforceable.
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3 Mayoral candidates running against Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, don't want to see the health care proposal get passed.
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Adams' term is up at year's end and he dropped out of a Democratic Party primary that is set for next week.
Adams is now running as an independent in a longshot bid, though the Democratic Party torchbearer would be far and away the favorite to win election in the deeply blue city.
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Mayoral hopefuls Comptroller Brad Lander and frontrunner Andrew Cuomo have both publicly opposed the switch and have specifically called for 30-to-60 day grace periods for families to seek other insurance after the death of a retiree and expediting the reimbursements process, as part of their pledge to retiree groups.
Every other candidate – with the exception of independent Jim Walden – also oppose the switch, according to a Citizen Budget Commission questionnaire.
3 The Court of Appeals granted Mayor Eric Adams a major victory as the city can shift retired city workers to Medicare Advantage plans.
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While surging socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani recently opposed the plan on his campaign website, a source with knowledge told The Post that he didn't sign a pledge to support the retirees nor did he go to the debate hosted by the advocacy group New York City Public Service Retirees.
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The source continued to say that this was in order to prevent losing an endorsement from the public service union DC37, which supports the switch to Medicare advantage plans.
The Mamdani campaign pointed to a prior 2022 statement where the Assemblyman opposed switching to Medicare Advantage but declined to comment about allegedly staying tightlipped in an effort to lose support.
The ruling even raised the ire of comptroller candidate Justin Brannan.
'Our city should never, ever be screwing retirees. And neither should the courts. No one will ever want to work for New York City again. Medicare Advantage is a bait and switch scam. Enough!' Brannan said.
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3 Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo and mayoral hopeful Brad Lander both oppose the plan.
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Comptroller candidate and current Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine didn't respond to a request for comment but said in a recent debate that he would make a decision on 'the details of the plan in consultation with retirees, with current workers, with labor leaders.'
The plan was first introduced by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021, who argued the program would lead to over $600 million in annual savings by utilizing federal subsidies.
The mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
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Registered party members may vote only in their own party's primary. How are ranked-choice voting results reported? In New York City, initial vote results released on primary night will include preliminary tallies only of first-choice votes. These results are not final or official. As these results are reported, the AP will call winners in races in which it's clear a candidate will receive more than 50% of the vote, either in the initial count or once ranked-choice results are counted. City election officials are expected to release preliminary results a week after the primary. This involves running the ranked-choice voting process on just the ballots that have been tabulated by that time. These results will not be final or official and may continue to change as all remaining ballots are processed and tabulated. This means that it's possible, at least in theory, that the leading candidate when preliminary ranked-choice voting results are released may go on to lose the election once all the ballots have been counted and the final ranked-choice voting results are determined. The AP will call a winner based on ranked-choice voting results if it's clear another candidate cannot catch up when additional votes are counted. What do turnout and advance vote look like? As of Feb. 20, there were 5.1 million registered voters in New York City. Of those, 65% were Democrats and 11% were Republicans. About 1.1 million voters were not registered with any party. Slightly more than 1 million voters cast ballots in the 2021 New York City primaries, about 27% of eligible voters, according to the city's Campaign Finance Board. About 12% of ballots in that primary were cast before election day. How long does vote-counting usually take? In the 2024 presidential election, the AP first reported New York City results at 9:01 p.m. ET, about a minute after polls closed. New York City's election night tabulation ended for the night in Queens at 12:25 a.m. ET with about 90% of total ballots counted across the city. As of Tuesday, there will be 133 days until the November general election.
