New York officials on Sunday sounded the alarm on the detrimental effects of several healthcare provisions that are part of the Republican budget reconciliation bill.
Governor Kathy Hochul and Minority Leader of the U.S House of Representatives Hakeem Jeffries said the bill, now being debated in the Senate, would collectively amount to an annual loss of nearly $13.5 billion for New Yorkers and the health care sector.
“Republicans in Washington have made it abundantly clear that they are determined to dismantle the social safety net that millions of New Yorkers rely on to secure their basic necessities,” Hochul said. “They are specifically targeting essential and life-saving programs such as Medicaid and food stamps with the consequence that everyday Americans will bear the brunt of this attack."
Jeffries, who spoke with Hochul at One Brooklyn Health's Interfaith Medical Center, said 1.5 million New Yorkers would lose their insurance as part of Washington's plan to enact massive tax cuts for billionaires.
"Nursing homes will close, hospitals will shut down and community health centers will lose funding," Jeffries said. "House Republicans from New York were nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump’s reckless and extreme agenda, voting to strip healthcare from their constituents. We must keep the pressure on and continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that the One Big Ugly Bill is buried deep in the ground, never to rise again.”
The current provisions of the bill would decimate federal funding for Medicaid and the Essential Plan, the Democrats said.
The bill also targets Medicaid through a variety of measures such as requiring states to impose stricter work reporting requirements, as well as as duplicate verification processes. These measures will significantly increase the administrative burden of the program, both making coverage much more challenging to access and dramatically increasing administrative costs, the officials said.
The bill also eliminates crucial funding mechanisms and imposes new penalties that target states like New York that have invested in expanding access to healthcare. All told, the bill would cause an almost $6 billion impact on the state’s Medicaid program — including, amongst other impacts, approximately $2.5 billion in lost federal revenue and $500 million in new state administrative costs alone.
All of these provisions will have a dramatic impact on New York’s healthcare providers, placing immense strain on the healthcare system and triggering far-reaching impacts on local economies. The state anticipates a loss of over $3 billion for New York’s hospitals as a result of increases in uncompensated care and decreases in reimbursement, health care officials said.
"These unnecessary and short-sighted cuts undermine the very health, safety and financial well-being of New Yorkers, especially those who rely on the health care safety net that’s being pulled away," said New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald. "This is not about Making America Healthy Again, it’s about Making America Hurt Again.”
