Next year is ramping up to be something nationwide and particularly in New York. Elise Stefanik is running for Governor. She evidently decided to unhitch her wagon from Donald Trump’s star and that’s a good move for anybody to make. Mike Lawler is already coming under tremendous heat for voting for Trump’s BBB because tens of thousands of his constituents are going to be adversely affected. The New York Democrats’ Press Office has released the following and it is scorching.
NEW YORK – Today, Elise Stefanik and every New York House Republican caved to Donald Trump and voted for final passage of Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill – threatening health care for 1.5 million New Yorkers. The budget bill includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in history in order to pay for tax breaks for Donald Trump’s special interest donors.
Health care leaders, business executives, and the GOP’s own constituents have repeatedly warned about the damage this bill would do to New Yorkers’ lives.
Stefanik and her House Republican colleagues ignored their constituents’ warnings and voted for the bill Donald Trump demanded they pass.
As the Governor holds the GOP accountable, health care leaders across New York have been sounding the alarm on the devastating impacts of Stefanik, Lawler, and New York House Republicans’ efforts to gut health care:
Clifton-Fine Hospital CEO Dierdre Sorrell: “Rural hospitals already operate on razor-thin margins and have been losing money for years, we certainly aren’t in a financial position to backfill these massive cuts… Certainly it’ll give you a sicker population… Your mortality rates will probably be higher, and I think you’ll see a lot of little hospitals closing that just won’t be able to afford to cover that self-pay.”
Hudson Headwaters Health Network Founder Dr. John Rugge: “It hurts the institutions, and that means it hurts everybody… What we could see is a medical desert from Glens Falls to Plattsburgh.”
Iroquois Healthcare Association President Kevin Kerwin: “Hospitals have a legal, moral and missionary obligation to treat… Whether you have insurance or don’t have insurance— it makes no difference. If you don’t have insurance, that means the hospital won’t be paid for those services.”
“If you lose a hospital in our area, that’s going to have a very negative impact on the whole community… From an economic point of view, jobs will be lost. And of course, healthcare will be lost.”
Elderwood nursing home Administrator Heidi Schempp: “Can you imagine not being able to see your spouse because they had to move into a nursing home far away?…Â It’s just devastating.”
Planned Parenthood of the North Country CEO Crystal Collette:Â “We already have a health care system that’s teetering on the brink of collapse… Sweeping cuts to Medicaid is something that I don’t think we can fundraise our way out of. There’s no possible way for our donors to make up the difference.”
Adirondack Health CEO Aaron Kramer:Â Rural hospitals already operate at “very thin margins… It is important for patients to have access to adequate health insurance coverage and for reimbursement rates to cover the cost of the care we provide.”
Kaleida Health CEO Don Boyd: “Organizations will look very different than they do today if these changes go through as they’re proposed now…Â It could lead to changes in access to services across New York state and in our community.”
“If this bill passes, I think it’s going to cause a lot of organizations to step back and really think about what they’re doing, at what pace and what’s feasible and sustainable.”
Greater New York Hospital Association President and CEO Ken Raske: “The numbers that the House action is looking at are astronomical.” It’s “inconceivable” to think about how the federal government will achieve those savings without a “material and utterly disruptive effect on the Medicaid payment system.”
Major funding disruptions to the Medicaid program “will force the closure of a number of New York hospitals.”
Raske: Proposed cuts would be “unsustainable” and the state’s hospital system would “not resemble what it is today.”
Essex County Manager Mike Mascarenas: Significant Medicaid cuts would not only hurt “the population that receives Medicaid, but to those who pay for it… I’ve been here 25 years, and what I will tell you with certainty is that the (proposed) change to Medicaid is probably the single biggest threat to property tax that I’ve ever witnessed in Essex County.”
Manatt Managing Director Kevin McAvey: “What winds up happening [with work requirements] is that eligible recipients end up losing coverage.”
Healthcare Association of New York State:Â “No matter what health insurance you have, the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Act will impact you.”
What happened earlier today is terrible. This is the roadmap for who is being affected and how. And money that has been clawed away from food and medicine is being used to finance the harassment efforts of ICE and Homeland Security. Today is a dark one. But on the other hand, Democrats are losing no time in fighting back and that’s what matters.
Reverse Robin Hood.
Robbing the poor to pay the rich.
AKA republicanism.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Still, it’s not like they’re going to be wasting money.
Closing all these hospitals all over the place leaves money for more important things.
Like ‘Alligator Auschwitz’.
And it’s clones, coming to an undrained swamp near you soon.