Mark Farrell: Breed is attempting to balance the budget on retirees' backs

During my time on the Board of Supervisors, before I served as interim mayor in 2018, I served on the San Francisco Health Service System board.

The San Francisco Health Service System is a relatively obscure body inside City Hall. It’s charged with selecting and managing the health-care plans available to city employees and retirees, along with their dependents. Among those are 17,500 people who are subscribed to a Medicare advantage plan.

While I served on it, the HHS board took the system’s mission seriously. We spent a significant amount of time working with providers to offer quality care options while keeping the city’s costs in check. City employees, retirees and their families depended on our work.

That is why I was shocked to witness what happened at the HSS in June at the direction of Mayor London Breed.

Every year, the HSS board evaluates its existing health-care plans, looking for ways to improve its offerings or reduce their expense. Occasionally, it will cancel existing plans in favor of new ones.

One of the largest health-care plans for retirees is offered by UnitedHealthcare. Its plan consistently scores incredibly high for patient care and quality of service, and it is well regarded by health-care providers.

This year, Blue Shield of California offered a competing plan for Medicare-eligible retirees that promised an estimated cost savings of approximately $20 million per year if its plan replaced UHC’s.

But such a move would come with significant downsides. The switch might force many retirees enrolled in the UHC plan to change doctors. Some might not be able to get the specialty care they now receive. Even more problematic, those living out of state might not be adequately covered, leaving them scared and very confused about whether they will retain their health-care benefits.

I’m not the only one concerned. Numerous union and labor organizations and senior advocacy groups — including the Police Officers Association, Firefighters Local 798, Protect Our Benefits, and Retired Employees of the City and County of San Francisco — support keeping the United plan.

So too did the HHS board. On June 7, it voted 4-3 to reject the new Blue Shield option. In explaining his vote against the plan, Dr. Stephen Follansbee — a member of the HSS board since 2015 — said he was “concerned about the disruption to the physician-patient relationship, especially for members residing outside of urban areas.”

But after the HSS board voted against replacing UHC with Blue Shield, Mayor Breed unceremoniously fired Dr. Follansbee. She immediately appointed a new board member, waited until one of the others — retired firefighter Jack Cremen — left on a planned holiday, and then had the HSS board vote again on the issue.

The HSS board voted to adopt the new Blue Shield plan, with Breed’s new appointee providing one of the winning votes. The move left retirees in the lurch.

I’ve always said that the mayor’s biggest policy and values statement each year is the budget. As someone who served as both interim mayor and the longest serving chair of the Budget Committee in San Francisco history, I understand the budget pressures inside City Hall.

It is no secret San Francisco is facing unprecedented budget deficits — the latest estimate was approximately $1.5 billion over the next five years. From experience, I can tell you that deficit stems from severe financial mismanagement, a lack of oversight and the mayor not having the backbone to make hard decisions.

The fact that City Hall is funding 248 different non-profits just for homeless services — and getting minimal results — is a testament to the current mayor’s financial disaster.

Under this mayor, San Francisco is suffering from a lack of police officers and facing challenges recruiting new ones. Even with our financial challenges, The City needs to do everything in its power to demonstrate it’s a great place to work. When the mayor balances the budget on the backs of the oldest and most vulnerable retirees, it sends the wrong message. It’s also morally wrong.

Let me be clear: This would never happen under my administration. As mayor, I will make the tough budget decisions necessary so that we can fully fund our public-safety departments, get our homeless and those addicted to fentanyl off our streets, and reboot our local economy — without turning my back on our retirees.

Mayor Breed should be ashamed, as should the rest of us as San Franciscans.

Mark Farrell, a former San Francisco supervisor and interim mayor, is running for a full term as mayor in the November election.