Photo Courtesy of Philip Kamrass/Office of the Governor
“Why you would want to play politics with someone’s healthcare is just beyond me,” Gov. Cuomo said.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday blasted the Trump administration for its $8 billion cut to the State’s healthcare system, calling it the President’s “latest calculated attack on New York.”
“The federal government last Friday notified us that they were cancelling what is called the DSRIP funding, healthcare funding to the State of New York which we had previously been granted in 2014. For those of you who weren’t here in 2014, we won a big federal grant which allowed us to transition our healthcare services from primarily hospital driven, which is very intensive and very expensive, to more of a community-based healthcare system,” Cuomo said. “And the grant was for eight billion dollars.”
According to the State Health Department, the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program is the main mechanism by which New York will implement the Medicaid Redesign Team Waiver Amendment. DSRIP’s purpose is to restructure the healthcare delivery system by reinvesting in the Medicaid program, with the primary goal of reducing avoidable hospital use by 25 percent over five years.
“This healthcare denial is really obnoxious, you know. If there’s one area that you’d think should be beyond politics, it’s healthcare. And what the federal government is doing is hurting Democrats and Republicans,” the governor said. “It’s not whether you’re blue or you’re red. These are needy New Yorkers, they’re primarily senior citizens, who are hurt. And we fought all of these cuts all along, but we’re going to fight this cut. I’m going to contact our congressional delegation. We’re going to marshal all our allies because it’s unconscionable. There has to be a place where you don’t play politics. It has to end somewhere. It should end at healthcare. We all say healthcare is a human right; we’re up to 96 percent healthcare coverage in this state, which is a great accomplishment. And why you would want to play politics with someone’s healthcare is just beyond me. They have no limits whatsoever.”
On Tuesday, Cuomo released a list of healthcare networks, known as Performing Provider Systems, that will be impacted by the federal cuts. They include borough institutions New York-Presbyterian/Queens PPS; Mount Sinai PPS; NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst; NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens; and Nassau University Medical Center, NUMC, Nassau-Queens PPS, LLC.
“In and of itself, it is very counterproductive and hurtful to this State, but when you view it in the series that are going on it is even more disturbing. Because this is not just the federal government takes an isolated action that is hurting the State. There is continued pattern and series of these actions,” Cuomo said. “Connect the dots and you see the line.”
Cuomo added that with the Trump administration, no matter the issue, it always comes down to politics.
“I have never seen government run through a self-serving political lens like this. But that is what it is,” the governor noted on Monday. “My point is that at one point it has to stop. And the line in the sand has to be healthcare.”
