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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by David Alexis, Advocate from Commission on the Public Health System
2:02:28
·
3 min
David Alexis, representing the Commission on the Public Health System, addresses the potential impact of federal Medicaid cuts on New York City's healthcare system, particularly on Health + Hospitals. He emphasizes the need for collaboration between community organizations, city agencies, and Health + Hospitals to address the anticipated gaps in healthcare services.
- Highlights the increasing pressure on Health + Hospitals due to hospital closures and potential loss of insurance for many Medicaid beneficiaries
- Expresses concern about the ability to provide critical services to vulnerable communities across the city
- Requests to be part of the conversation with the city and Health + Hospitals in planning for these challenges
David Alexis
2:02:28
Beautiful.
2:02:29
Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to testify.
2:02:34
Judy and I, my name is David Alexis, I'm here with Judy Wessler.
2:02:37
We're here on behalf of the Commission on the Public Health System, a citywide community based health care or health organ advocacy organization that over the last thirty years has been championing health health care access equity across New York City.
2:02:54
And our mission is to ensure that all New Yorkers, especially low income residents, immigrants, and communities of color have robust access to a robust and equitable public health care system.
2:03:04
I wanna take a moment to, you know, skip a little bit of what we were going to say originally because the testimony that or the the earlier in the hearing discussion that the by both chairs of the finance and the hospital committee in addition to all the city council members with the discussion they had with health and hospitals addressed a lot of the concerns that we were hoping to address, and I think did a very very good job to help kind of paint the picture of the state we're in with the massive cuts that are gonna come down from the from the federal government, the Trump administration.
2:03:40
And while there's much in influx because we don't know how much the state is gonna absorb and whatnot, I and I've we we feel that the sit the city council has been doing the work necessary to be to prepare for what could be very catastrophic changes.
2:03:56
And one of the things that I think I really just wanna just maybe restate or just really edify is that as a result of the dependence of these dollars that we get through Medicaid reimbursements and whatnot, and this hole that's gonna be created, there is so much that really kinda needs to be worked out, planned in coordination with health and hospitals, who who is literally gonna be the at the forefront of a lot of covering these these gaps, of making sure that aware of the shortfalls, the collaboration between a community based organizations that are oftentimes walking in walking in tandem with the city council, the city agencies, and health and hospitals kind of need to really be very much on the same page as this goes along.
2:04:50
So seeing that at the end of the day we're gonna with the 1,000,000 residents that really rely on these critical services provided by health and hospitals, this intensity with the closing of Mounts of Beth Israel Hospital and the assumption that, you know, not only the patients are gonna go to Bellevue, the uncertainty that's happening with SUNY downstate, seeing that Kings County is gonna which the hospital already has a huge number of patients that it's seen and we're seeing potentially increase.
2:05:24
I know council member Lewis already addressed a little bit of that, but overall, all these services will increase the need for Medicaid beneficiaries who are gonna be losing their health care insurance and become insured, and we don't know how many of the federal federally qualified health centers are gonna stay in place to cover those who, without insurance, they're gonna get they're gonna get the care that they need.
2:05:45
So we really are hoping to be a part of this conversation with the city, with health and hospitals around what is the plan and what is the nature of this going to look like, how we're gonna continue to provide critical services for all these vulnerable communities across the city.
2:06:06
And I'm gonna I refer to my to Judy to kind of talk about some of the initial recommendations that we've been thinking through as, you know, at the beginning of this planning process.