PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Gustavo Rivera, State Senator from New York State Senate, on Hospital Closures and Healthcare Access
1:43:09
·
3 min
State Senator Gustavo Rivera addresses the NYC City Council on the issues of hospital closures and healthcare access in New York. He emphasizes the need for community input in hospital closure decisions and proposes several legislative solutions to improve healthcare coverage and funding.
- Advocates for a bill awaiting the governor's signature that would give more weight to community input in hospital closure decisions
- Promotes the New York Health Act as a comprehensive solution to address healthcare system issues
- Discusses a bill to provide comprehensive insurance to all individuals regardless of immigration status, which could alleviate financial pressure on healthcare institutions
Gustavo Rivera
1:43:09
Good afternoon, everyone.
1:43:10
Good afternoon, chairman, chairwoman, and and Share Woman, Schulman, as well as one of my colleagues there.
1:43:20
A lot has been a lot has been said already.
1:43:22
There's a couple of things that I'll just say to you have my written testimony.
1:43:26
I want there's a couple of things that I wanna add.
1:43:29
Number 1, certainly, there is a process right now for closing hospitals in the state of New York, but unfortunately, it is one that does not take does not take the communities input into account.
1:43:41
And in all honesty, leaves the state with little teeth to be able to enforce when we when they believe that it is not something that should happen.
1:43:52
Everything that we've heard today talks about the need of these hospitals and these institutions across the state.
1:43:57
So I wanted to just speak for a couple of minutes about some of the things that I believe we can do, first of all, as it relates to those closures, as we said, the bill that sponsored by a a some member, Simon, and myself, and the senate, passed and basically unanimously, and now waits for the governor's signature.
1:44:13
And I certainly thank you the counsel for joining us and continuing to encourage the governor to do the right thing and sign this bill into law.
1:44:22
But second, something that was mentioned by one of my colleagues, a certain member, Rosales Roxas, there is a there's a larger bill.
1:44:29
The New York Health Act would actually go a long way towards solving a lot of the problems that we got that we have that make some of these closures supposedly necessary.
1:44:41
I mean, when we think about the fact that you have institutions are considering whether they are the primary motivator's profitability.
1:44:49
And that's because of the way that the current system is organized.
1:44:52
So it's kind of one of those things where even good actors are stuck in a place where they have to put institutions in places where they're more private payers and Medicaid patients.
1:45:02
Because as I've said many, many times over the last 15 years of me being in the Senate, what be what have become clear is that institutions who treat medicate patients, basically lose money every time somebody walks in the door.
1:45:15
And, ultimately, because we have a system that is built on profitability, in even institutions who want to provide for their for their or for for for the Medicaid patients have to figure out how to make some level of money to be able to stabilize themselves.
1:45:28
And but there are things that we can do certainly passing the near California as a big as a big piece and eventually something that I hope that we will do.
1:45:35
But there's other things that we can do.
1:45:37
We have one bill, for example, that I have that would provide comprehensive insurance to all individuals that is the the regardless of their immigration status by getting federal money, to provide that, to provide the essential plan to undocumented folks, which would take a lot of money that is currently being spent by the state as emergency Medicaid, and we would get it from the federal government that is coverage for all, that is something that we can do, that will that will give the state and the federal and and give the state and the city money by making sure that institutions who serve many undocumented folks, they actually get
Danielle Green
1:46:13
they will
Gustavo Rivera
1:46:13
actually have the essential planning standard.
UNKNOWN
1:46:15
Your time has expired.
Gustavo Rivera
1:46:17
And there's a couple of other bills that I look forward to speaking about.
1:46:20
Thank you for the invitation.
1:46:21
I didn't know how much time I had, so I was trying to hurry you up.
1:46:23
Thank you.
Mercedes Narcisse
1:46:23
No worries.
