WalletHub<\/a> ranks New York state as having the least affordable health care in the United States, citing costs beyond monthly premiums, including copays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses. Another finding shows the average person in New York State spends $15,500 a year on health care.<\/p>\nNew York\u2019s overall ranking comes in a little higher, with one report placing the state at No. 39 out of 50 overall (that includes factors like accessibility and outcomes in addition to affordability).<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. John Mannion, D-N.Y., said health care costs remain one of the biggest concerns for his constituents. <\/p>\n
The cost of healthcare, if not number one, its in the top two issues for people. So this is a serious issue that people expect their elected officials to work on. I have been working on it and I\u2019ll continue to.<\/p>\n
Mannion said there are steps that could be taken in the near term, including building on efforts to limit prescription drug costs and expanding the government\u2019s ability to negotiate prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the capping of many of our pharmaceutical drug costs is a good idea, I think we should expand that list, and we should expand the ability to negotiate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, officials are aiming for broader changes focused on reducing health care costs. In the meantime, Mannion said smaller moves could help, including improving access and affordability and restoring funding that was reduced through federal cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need comprehensive reform around healthcare costs, but in the short term, I think there are things we can do to increase accessibility and affordability in restoring some of the funding from those cuts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mannion’s GOP opponent in the upcoming election, Kailee Buller, sent this statement to our team: <\/p>\n
We have some of the highest healthcare costs, highest taxes, and highest utility bills. John Mannion yells about all of it, but helped create the problems in Albany and is making it worse in Congress. My plan: price transparency, prescription drug reform, lower costs, and work across the aisle to get it done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re struggling to keep up with medical bills, you\u2019re not alone, and a new study suggests New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-314766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}