taken steps<\/a> to maintain Essential Plan coverage for most of the 1.7 million people currently enrolled in the program statewide. \u201cWhile no state can backfill these devastating cuts, the governor took decisive action to protect coverage for as many New Yorkers as possible,\u201d Simmonds said.<\/p>\nBut Assemblymember Amy Paulin and Sen. Gustavo Rivera, Democrats who chair the health committees in their respective chambers, said Hochul and the legislature can do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it is factual that we would not find ourselves in this position were it not for the actions of the federal government, the fact is that at this point right now, we have a way to solve it and we’re not doing it,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cWe’re not engaging with it in a real way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heastie told reporters last week that he struggles to see a path forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve kind of bounced around some ideas, but no matter which iteration you try to come up with, it still requires the state to come up with billions,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m not sure the money is there under our current tax structure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Democratic lawmakers and community healthcare advocates disagree. In their letter to Hochul, lawmakers pointed out that she already set aside $2.4 billion in contingency funding tied to the Essential Plan earlier this year that is no longer being used.<\/p>\n
Advocates also say there are levers the state can pull to reduce the cost. One option discussed by Hochul and lawmakers is to charge a $50 monthly premium \u2014 a move that would generate revenue to defray the expense while also dissuading some people from enrolling, thereby reducing the cost further.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are a healthy 28-year-old who feels like you’re immortal, if the healthcare is free, then you’ll definitely enroll in it,\u201d said Michael Kinnucan, health policy director for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. \u201cIf it costs $50 a month, especially if you’re low income and you’re squeezed in other ways, you might not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another option is to lower the rates the plan pays healthcare providers.<\/p>\n
The Community Service Society of New York, which advocates on behalf of healthcare consumers, has estimated that the plan to keep people insured could cost as little as $393 million this fiscal year, ramping up to about $675 million a year by fiscal year 2029.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Benjamin, the organization\u2019s vice president for health initiatives, said Hochul has the opportunity to \u201cshow that she can be the hero and save health coverage for half a million people.\u201d It would come as the governor is running for reelection on a campaign heavily focused on making the state more affordable.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s cuts to the Essential Plan were tied to a decision to no longer provide federal funding for health coverage for certain legally present immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. But Hochul\u2019s strategy for keeping the Essential Plan afloat has involved reducing the income limit for all members, regardless of immigration status \u2014 from about $40,000 a year for an individual to about $32,000 a year.<\/p>\n
Those who now earn too much to qualify will still likely struggle to afford the thousands of dollars a year a private marketplace plan might cost, Benjamin said.<\/p>\n
Some Albany Republicans, meanwhile, say the state already spends too much on healthcare and isn\u2019t in a position to spend more.<\/p>\n
Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from the Buffalo area, said New York could have helped deter federal cuts by keeping healthcare costs down in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re running into unsustainable spending on some of these programs, and I worry about where that goes,\u201d Ortt said. \u201cDo I want people to lose health coverage? No. Was it entirely preventable, from my perspective? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paulin said the \u201cgood news\u201d is that a final budget still isn\u2019t forthcoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe budget is not near done, unfortunately,\u201d she said. \u201cWe still have some time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A last-ditch effort to prevent hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from losing their publicly funded health insurance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-652743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}