Urgent Call to Action!

Urgent Call to Action! Please call Governor Cuomo and your NYS legislators & email your NYS legislators to let them know that you object to Medicaid cuts, the impact on NYC and H+H, and that it will make it harder for patients to access needed care.

Medicaid Cuts:  Governor Cuomo is looking to severely cut Medicaid in this year’s state budget.  The Governor has appointed a Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) with little to no frontline doctor representation or representatives of patients and communities, and no one from NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H).  Patient care and lives are on the line, as are jobs.  Please use the telephone number and link below to call and/or email Governor Cuomo and your NYS Assembly Member and NYS Senator to let them know that you oppose the Medicaid cuts and its impact on our patients, communities, H+H and the City.  The Medicaid cuts will also impact NYC services, such as to children, school programs, and families.

• Urgent calls are needed.  You can use the New York State AFL-CIO Hot Line to call 877-255-9417 and press 1 for Governor Cuomo’s office to leave a message or speak with an agent.  Press 2 for the NYS Senate and press 3 for the NYS Assembly.  For the Senate and Assembly, if you do not know who your representatives are, simply tell the operator where you live and/or work and you will be connected to the correct office.
• You can also email your NYS Assembly and NYS Senate representatives through this link  Once you input your name, email and address (either where you live or work) you can send an email to your NYS Assembly and Senate representatives using the existing text or input your own language.  

Background:  As NYC Mayor de Blasio testified before the NYS Legislature, the proposed budget cuts, “would have a truly negative effect on the people of our city…. the cuts in this year’s executive budget are of a magnitude we have never seen before…. the combined cuts would have an impact of $1.4 billion in reduced services for the people of New York City – $1.4 billion….The Medicaid Redesign Team is potentially looking at up to $2.5 billion in additional savings. And if it cannot find those savings, the Governor proposes to take that $2.5 billion and cut it from localities around the state. …we’ll put the health and welfare of the state’s largest city at risk and would undermine all the progress we’ve made in recent years bringing the Health + Hospitals Corporation back to solvency and making it more effective. This would literally set us back years. It’s the largest public health system in the nation caring for more than a million New York City residents each year.  It could not withstand cuts of this magnitude without reductions, profound reductions in services to people in need health care….What would it mean for us if there was a $1.1 billion cut? First in Health + Hospitals, we project it would mean the closing of 19 neighborhood clinics which treat 140,000 patients a year. It would result in the layoff of 1,300 doctors and nurses, frontline health care providers which would result in longer wait times for patients. And the specialty areas that would be affected would be treatment of cancer, heart disease, mental health, a number of other very, very serious needs….Health + Hospitals alone could not sustain this cut without even more profound setbacks to the health care of New Yorkers.”

We must do more to assure patients have access to timely needed care.  These cuts will do nothing to protect or ensure adequate care for New York’s neediest patients, and make it even worse.

Thanks for taking the time to advocate for our safety net facilities such as Health + Hospitals and the services to New Yorkers.  Our patients and communities need access to the services we provide.