We have been busily working with our partners in various coalition groupings since the midterm elections to finalize our shared policy and legislative goals for the year ahead. Two days ago, a new congressional session began down in Washington DC (at least on the Senate side), and yesterday a new state legislative session got underway up in Albany. We’re off to the races!
No bills of any sort have yet been introduced in Congress or the State Legislature, so we can’t yet speak about any specific ones. Nevertheless, here’s how we’re starting things out as of this moment in early January as we focus on health insurance issues. (Other issues to be discussed in our next email, focusing on hospitals and Rx drugs.)
Universal health care:
At the national level, we will continue to support Medicare-for-All proposals in Congress, and other ideas that build on Medicare and other existing public programs. We will take a similar approach here in New York, to support comprehensive proposals as well as step-by-step ones. For us, it’s not an either-or approach but a both-and one. It’s all good!
Expanding and improving health insurance coverage:
National: Over the past two years, ideas to improve and expand Medicare have gained traction, including adding dental, hearing, and vision coverage, capping total out-of-pocket costs for hospital and medical coverage (like what was just done for drug coverage within the new Inflation Reduction Act law.), and leveling the playing field between Traditional Medicare and private Medicare plans (aka “Medicare Advantage”) by ending overpayments to private insurers.
New York: Historically we have been a “leader state” when it comes to health care programs (compared to many other states), and we should be proud of that. Currently, over 40% of our state’s population is enrolled in a public insurance program. Nevertheless, approximately 1 million people still remain uninsured, and there are some things we can do in the immediate term to help them, such as:
- Expanding public health insurance programs to all low-income immigrants regardless of legal status issues (aka “Coverage for All”)
- Creating a robust community-based outreach programs to seek out and enroll people who lack coverage.
- Providing continuous Medicaid coverage for all young children in low-income families, from birth to age 3 (aka “First Thousand Days”)
In addition to getting coverage in place for people, a parallel concern is the quality of the coverage they get. The federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) sets comprehensive benefit standards for health coverage. However, the ACA leaves the matter of standards for provider networks and drug formularies up to states to set and enforce. Here in New York, our network adequacy standards have not been updated in a few decades. In addition, insurers are allowed to change their provider and Rx drug lists at will at any time even though people enrolled in a health plan are stuck in it for a whole year. These problems can be addressed by the State for the types of health insurance that it has jurisdiction over, either in legislation or regulation.
Expanding consumer and patients’ rights and protections for New Yorkers:
- Updating hospital financial assistance programs to better serve low and moderate-income patients.
- Preventing or limiting unpaid medical debt issues from adversely affecting people’s credit reports.
- Providing cost-of-living increases to state-funded, community-based consumer assistance programs that help people a) learn about and enroll in health coverage, and b) address problems that arise when using their coverage or seeking care health care providers.
In addition to our own ideas above, there will others that we will need to respond to pro or con, proposals that other stakeholders and lawmakers will put on the table.
Working with our allies and partners, and with your participation and support, we are confident that we can succeed on several or more of the above ideas and goals for this year. We look forward to continuing our successful partnership for this new year!