There has been a hiatus in the issuance of the OSARC Newsletter over the past few years. When we again issue an edition of the OSARC Newsletter in 2024, it will appear on this page.

In the meantime, you can view videos of the 2024 monthly membership meetings below:

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - JUNE, 2024

OSARC's June meeting featured a presentation by a financial planner on "Managing Your Retirement and Spending." Our guest presenter was Matthew Tagle, a partner at Comprehensive Financial Partners. Matthew is a specialist in the area of retirement planning. He started his career as an accountant helping clients with their taxes. After he completed his MBA, he worked as an investment advisor at JP Morgan for three years. Now he handles all cases, simple and complex, for his clients.

You can download the minutes of the May meeting at the link below:

OSARC May 2024 Meeting Minutes

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - MAY, 2024

OSARC's May meeting featured an explanation of the role of the Democratic National Committee and by extension, the Republican National Committee and the role of the Democratic National Committee's Senior Council. The presentation will cover the electoral landscape from the point of view of retirees and union members. Our guest presenter was Steve Regenstreif, Chair of the National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council and member of the Democratic National Committee. In 2013, Regenstreif retired as director of the Retiree Department of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). AFSCME, the nation’s largest public employee union began organizing public sector retirees in 1980 and has had the distinction of being the fastest growing retiree organization in the labor movement. It is also the largest organization of public sector retirees in America. Since 1983, while Steve was director, the membership grew from 18,000 dues-paying members to some 250,000 retirees in 250 state and local groups. During the last 15 years, the AFSCME Retirees added more than 10,000 new members each year. Regenstreif began his career with AFSCME in 1973 and has held various positions including Assistant to then Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, Assistant Director of the AFSCME Organizing Department and assistant to the late National President+, Jerry Wurf. From 1978 to 1981, he worked in New York and played a leading role in the permanent affiliation of the 220,000 member Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), representing New York State employees, which brought AFSCME membership to over a million. He was Director of the national Retiree Program from 1983 until his retirement. He was also a delegate to the 1995, 2005, and 2015 White House Conferences on Aging, the 1998 White House Conference on Social Security and the 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings. In October 2017, he was re-elected to a third term as Chair of the National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council. As a result of holding this position, he is a member of the Democratic National Committee.

You can download the minutes of the April meeting at the link below:

OSARC April 2024 Meeting Minutes

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - APRIL, 2024

OSARC's April meeting featured an overview of estate planning, what we can do to ease the process for our families, and the reasons why we don't always follow through. Our guest presenter was estate planning attorney Kimberly McAdoo, whose special focus is on facilitating the transfer of intergenera-tional wealth for families of color in New York City and surrounding areas. Her firm, McAdoo Estate Planning, is an estate planning, probate and elder law firm located in New York. Kim is a proud graduate of St. John’s University School of Law, where she received a full scholarship. She works with families in all five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester County. Kim was devastated when her father Eugene died without a penny to his name after breaking the color line as a conductor for Southern Railway in the 1960's. With her father as her primary inspiration in life, as well as in estate planning, Kim set off on a quest to find out why he had died broke and ended up discovering a passion for helping families transfer wealth without the involvement of the courts or government. She is also the mother of a non-verbal adult son with autism. In planning for her son, she realized that other parents also need counsel with respect to their teenage and adult children with special needs.

You can download the minutes of the March meeting at the link below:

OSARC March 2024 Meeting Minutes

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - MARCH, 2024

OSARC's guest presenter at the March meeting was Cathleen McGuire, CRVT, Ms. McGuire is the Senior Director of Vision Rehabilitation and Outreach at VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired. She has been working in the field of vision rehabilitation for over 25 years. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Services from St. John's University and a Master's degree In Special Education with a concentration in Vision Rehabilitation and Orientation and Mobility from Hunter College. Over the years, she has worked with a variety of populations including children, adults with developmental disabilities and older adults. Her presentation was intended to help you learn about the four major eye diseases and their warning signs, as well as what you can do if you are experiencing vision loss, so you can maintain your independence.

You can download the minutes of the February meeting at the link below:

OSARC February 2024 Meeting Minutes

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - FEBRUARY, 2024

The topic of our February meeting was taxes. Our guest presenter was Lloyd Feinberg, a tax preparer and retired OSA member. Lloyd has presented information to OSARC annually in each of the last six years on Federal and State tax rules, providing tips and reminders as we move into tax season and you collect the documents needed to prepare your tax returns. Among the issues he will review this year are: Useful Websites and Publications; Filing Status; Income Forms You Should Receive; Standard vs Itemized deductions; Estimated Taxes and Withholding; Selling Your Home; Rules on Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from Deferred Compensation, including IRAs; How To Handle City Pension income, City Deferred Compensation Fund account (457, 401k) distributions and IRA income.

You can download the minutes of the December and January meetings at the links below:

OSARC December 2023 Meeting Minutes

OSARC January 2024 Meeting Minutes

OSARC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING - JANUARY, 2024

The topic of January's presentation is "From The Privatization of Medicare to Health Care for All." Our guest presenters were Martha Livingston and Leonard Rodberg, both long-time health care activists. Drs. Livingston and Rodberg discussed how Medicare, our public health plan for seniors (and selected others) is rapidly being converted into a private, for-profit insurance scheme. Retirees are losing the benefits they were promised. They explored why this is happening and what can be done to stop it. And, they described where we should be heading -- towards the New York Health Act and the Medicare for All Act, to provide access to health care for everyone in New York and the nation.

Martha Livingston is Professor of Public Health at SUNY Old Westbury, a Board member of the New York-Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and of the Steering Committee of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care. She is an organizer of the Socialist Caucus of the American Public Health Association, a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Public Health Policy, and co-editor, with Mary E. O'Brien, M.D., of 10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care (NY: The New Press, 2008). She is an active member of her union, United University Professions, Local 2190 of the American Federation of Teachers. She is a lifelong activist in the civil rights, peace, labor and women's health movements, a certified childbirth educator, and a onetime organizer for the hospital workers' union, 1199.

Leonard Rodberg holds a PhD in physics from MIT. He retired in 2017 as Professor and Chair of the Urban Studies Department at Queens College/City University of New York. He began his activities in health care in 1974, when he led the development of the Dellums Health Service Act. He was one of the founders of Physicians for a National Health Program and is now on the Board of the NY Metro Chapter, is Research Director of the Chapter, and is on the Board of the Campaign for New York Health. He served as a consultant to Assemblymember Richard Gottfried in the development of the NY Health Act. Most recently, he has been involved in the fight to preserve public Medicare, not private Medicare Advantage, as the source of health coverage for retirees of the City of New York.

Len's presentation can be downloaded at this link.

During the meeting, OSARC Chairperson Joan Borovoy announced that the leadership of OSARC had agreed to sign on to a letter to President Biden asking him to take several actions: hold insurance companies responsible for the billions the Medicare Trust Fund has lost to fraud and abuse in Medicare Advantage; make Medicare whole by adding vision, dental, and hearing benefits and by capping out-of-pocket costs; level the playing field by making the cost of traditional Medicare + Medigap comparable to the cost of Medicare Advantage; and inform the public that Medicare Advantage is private insurance not traditional Medicare. You can read the letter by clicking on the following link:

Letter to President Biden

If you'd like to send your own letter to President Biden on thie issue, feel free to download and adapt this letter for your own use.