NEW YORK CITY, September 4—Retired city workers here in NYC are fighting back against the joint city bosses and union plan to force 250,000 retirees from traditional Medicare plus, a premium free medigap plan, into a Medicare (dis)advantage plan run by a private for-profit insurance company. This struggle, which has been going on for over two years, has exposed once again that healthcare is run to provide profits for the healthcare bosses and the needs of the capitalist state rather than the needs of the working class. Only communist revolution can build a society where healthcare is based on the needs of the working class.

As access to health care services has become more difficult in the U.S., life expectancy has dropped every year for the last five years. It is at its lowest since 1996 (CDC, 8/31/22).  We have all heard personal stories of health care delayed or denied by insurance companies causing unnecessary deaths and of shortages and the high price of drugs causing still more fatalities. Furthermore, Black workers here have the highest age adjusted death rate amongst all workers in the U.S. (Society of Actuaries, 7/20). Racism infects all aspects of the U.S. healthcare system. For example, the higher copays included in the Medicare (dis)advantage plan would hurt all but fall disproportionately hard on low-income Black, Latin and women retirees. This will only change when we replace capitalism with communism.

Fighting back gives the workers a temporary win
A recent court decision blocked the city/union plan from going into effect. This occurred because of the determined efforts of retirees to fight back! Although the judge found that retiree’s property rights (the underpinnings of the U.S. legal system) had been violated by the city/union plan, this doesn’t mean that this particular attack will “stop” or that the legal basis preventing it won’t be “legally” changed or superseded. As the reality of war and fascism develop, more and more of the “rights” we think we are guaranteed will fall away. The only “right” we can rely on is our willingness to fight.

At every step of this struggle we have fought not only the city bosses but also the leadership of the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC). Furthermore, we expect that the MLC will soon announce new health care coverage for city workers that will reduce access to healthcare institutions and cost them more. Every choice that has been made by the MLC leaders has protected the profits of the medical insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry and has attempted to shift additional costs to workers. As the old saying goes, “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Workers need communism, not union leaders
Many retirees wonder why the MLC is on the side of the city bosses. PLP says that unions are capitalist institutions and union leaders accept capitalism and its needs. Union leaders sit on the boards of directors of health insurance companies. They sit on pension boards that invest in and hope to profit from health insurance and pharmaceutical companies.  They therefore will seek to force workers through lies, persuasion and coercion into 1) accepting more and more fascist cutbacks and 2) preventing any resistance.

On Labor Day Marches this year thousands and thousands of workers will be marching through the streets of New York and elsewhere in the U.S. What if these workers were won to join together under the leadership of Progressive Labor Party to fight for communist revolution? Then we could build a society where the health needs and all needs of every worker would be guaranteed!