State legislators are urging action in this year’s budget to protect healthcare access for New Yorkers and to help fill a $2 billion gap in healthcare funding left by federal cuts, and their proposed solutions include revenue raisers in the form of corporate taxes. State Assemblymember Jon Rivera says the solution is simple: tax the rich.
“We are no longer going to prioritize the financial benefit to a handful of super wealthy people, just so that people that are struggling can struggle all the more," he said.
Rivera joined healthcare workers, represented by unions 1199SEIU and CWA, at Schofield Nursing Home to urge Albany lawmakers to pass the Reinvest in New York Health Care Act. The legislation would impose a 9.63 percent tax on profits that insurance companies take out of state, which would be redirected into patient care.
Rivera also proposed increasing taxes on individuals making over $5 million a year who received federal tax cuts through the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act. That law introduced more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over ten years, affecting nearly 37 percent of New Yorkers who rely on federal health insurance. As of February, about 27 percent of Erie County residents’ health insurance is being provided by Medicaid.
In recent weeks caregivers have declared a 'Code Red' for health care services in Western New York. Local providers say that they have been hit especially hard by Medicaid reimbursement rates, which only cover about 75 percent of the actual cost of care.
“Because of how Medicaid rates are calculated, providers in the region are at a comparative disadvantage to other parts of the state, even as we face the same workforce shortages, same rising labor costs and the same increasing complexity of care,” said Chris Koenig, President and CEO of Schofield Care.
Schofield Nursing Home has taken in some residents from another nursing home in the region that recently closed. Stephanie Ezak, a physical therapist at Schofield, says the funding shortfalls have devastated facilities that were finally making progress after suffering blows from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If the state fails to address the federal cuts, inadequate staffing, wages, benefits and difficult working conditions in nursing homes, things will only continue to get worse,” she said.
Before heading to Albany to lobby for healthcare prioritization in the state budget, Rivera said that the future of healthcare will ultimately comedown to states asserting more policy independence, even if that means bearing a bigger financial burden.
"If we want to be good administrators of state resources, if we want to be good leaders in the public space, we have to be willing to pay what we want," he said.
