Letter to the Editor:
At this stage of the game, it is appropriate to ask what it will take for Gov. Kathy Hochul to endorse the New York Health Act.
The act proposes a single payer health care system that would guarantee health care for all New Yorkers — no copays, no premiums, no deductibles — and would save billions of dollars in county, municipal and school district costs.
By Hochul’s own calculations, issued last July, 1.7 million New Yorkers alone are at risk of losing their health care benefits under Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, resulting in 65,000 lost jobs, 51,000 preventable deaths and the potential closing of 18 hospitals, not to mention savings that would be accrued from lower property taxes, county and municipal employee benefits and school district expenses. Some Medicaid recipients have already received their termination notices in the mail. By Hochul’s own calculations, these cuts will cost the state about $12.5 billion a year (some studies estimate this figure as high as $20 billion).
One can argue that Trump and Congress intended all along to shift the burden of health care costs to the states, which is all the more reason to wonder why Gov. Hochul has withheld her support for the bill, when backing it is the politically smart thing to do.
Clear majorities in both houses of the state legislature are either pledged supporters or co-sponsors of the New York Health Act. All it takes is for Gov. Hochul to say that she’s on board and it will pass.
What on Earth is she waiting for?
David Medina
Croton-on-Hudson