Brian Lairer on WNYC, and speaking of the local primaries, last night, I co-moderated the final Democratic primary debate for New York City Comptroller between Manhattan

Borough President Mark Levine and Brooklyn City Council member and Finance Committee Chair Justin

Brannon. They agreed on most things, but not everything. Wait until you hear them on Medicare

Advantage. We'll play that clip. The other moderators were ERA Lewis from New York One and Alyssa Katz, executive

editor of the news organization, The City, who joins us now as we play some excerpts and try to help

you make your decision for the Office of Controller if you're a Democratic registered Democrat in New York

City. And let's be honest, not many people think very much about this office, but it's

very important to the city, and even more so when you don't like whoever the mayor is. So,

hey, Alyssa, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC. Hello, Brian. Glad to be here.

I'm going to jump right into this Medicare Advantage clip. We get so many listeners call us and

text about this, as I know you get reader comments. This is about, for listeners who don't know,

this is about the deal between the city and municipal workers unions to force many city

retirees to switch from traditional Medicare to the privatized Medicare Advantage system.

Here's the full exchange on that from last night, and it begins with Alyssa's question.

So our news organizations, WNYC, New York One in the City, we asked our listeners, viewers, and readers to send in questions. And we heard from a lot

of folks about Medicare Advantage, including from Sarah from Yorkville and many, many others.

And so we wanted to ask about this planned switch to Medicare Advantage for city employees

who are retired, which paid for raises for current city workers, but has also

raised an upward among retirees who say that it's providing, it will provide reduced

benefits to them and has so far been blocked in court. So as the steward of the city's finances,

what would you recommend the next mayor do about the promise billions of dollars in health care cost savings tied to past union contracts while also getting retired city workers the health care they were promised so we'll start with you mr levin well this is actually an issue that the next comptroller might have a formal role on presumably new contracts would come before the new comptroller's office for review and certification.

And so I will make a decision on this based on the details of the plan in consultation with retirees,

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