Albany can’t let half a million New Yorkers lose health coverage
David R. Jones, La Nueva Mayoria / The New Majority
When it comes to progressive and inclusive health care policies, New York has always been a trailblazer. The state prides itself on being a beacon of opportunity, inclusion and fairness. Our laws, our institutions and our public investments have long reflected a shared understanding that healthcare is not a luxury, but a foundation for a thriving society and economy.
That is why the prospect that the state could pass a budget that knowingly allows nearly half a million New Yorkers to lose health insurance on July 1 should alarm everyone who cares about the state’s future.
Unless the legislature and the Governor act decisively, 430,000 working-class New Yorkers, and a 21,000 lawfully present immigrants, will lose coverage as a direct result of federal cuts to public health programs, including the Essential Plan. These are not abstractions. They are home health aides, restaurant workers, gig workers, delivery drivers, childcare workers and parents raising young families — people who go to work every day, pay taxes and keep the state running. Losing coverage means postponed care, untreated chronic conditions, medical debt, more visits to overwhelmed emergency rooms and financial instability that can ripple across entire communities.
What makes this looming crisis so difficult to accept is that New York has the means to prevent it. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget recognized the seriousness of the federal threat and responsibly set aside $2.4 billion to mitigate coverage losses stemming from H.R.1. That funding reflects an understanding that protecting health coverage is not only a moral imperative but also sound fiscal policy: uninsured New Yorkers ultimately cost the state more through uncompensated care, emergency room crowding and lost productivity.
Even more striking is that clear, workable solutions are already on the table. Last month, the state Senate and Assembly introduced companion bills, S9589 and A10926, that would preserve health coverage for approximately 450,000 New Yorkers. These proposals are grounded in a detailed analysis by the Community Service Society of New York, which outlined multiple options the state could adopt to maintain coverage at a cost of under $400 million — well within the resources already included in the governor’s executive budget. The legislation has attracted significant support — 95% of the state Senate majority and 75% of the Assembly majority signed on as co-sponsors, an acknowledgement of how important this issue is.
Allowing these solutions to languish while coverage expires would be a profound failure of governance and penny-wise and pound-foolish. Research indicates that allowing half a million New Yorkers to become uninsured would be three times as expensive as providing coverage as proposed in S9589/A10926 because of increased uncompensated care, lost community health center revenue, increased emergency room use and overcrowding, and impact of patients delaying care.
The Essential Plan, in particular, has been one of New York’s quiet success stories. It has provided comprehensive, affordable coverage to low-income adults who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to absorb private insurance premiums and cost-sharing. Stripping away that coverage without a state-level replacement would unravel years of progress in reducing the state’s uninsured rate, improving access to preventive care and narrowing racial health disparities.
Budget negotiations are always complex, and lawmakers face genuine competing priorities. But not all choices carry the same moral and economic weight. Preserving health insurance for hundreds of thousands of residents is not a marginal issue to be set aside for convenience; it is a test of the state’s values.
The choice before state leaders is stark but simple: Use the tools and resources already at hand to protect health coverage for 450,000 New Yorkers or allow callous federal cuts to dictate outcomes that undermine families and communities across the state. New York should choose to lead, not retreat — and it should do so before the coverage clock runs out.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years, and a member of the MTA Board. The views in this column are solely those of the writer. The New Majority is available on CSS’s Web site: www.cssny.org