A coalition of labor unions, health care advocates, community groups and elected officials are gearing up to fight a plan by Governor George Pataki that, they fear, will result in the closing of many New York hospitals and have a devastating impact on poor and underserved neighborhoods.
The plan is Governor Pataki’s Federal-State Health Reform Partnership (F-SHRP).
According to Judy Wessler, director of the commission on the Public’s Health System [a nonprofit advocacy organization], the governor is asking the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for $1.5 billion in federal funding for hospital and nursing home restructuring.
The Commission was enacted as part of New York State’s budget on April 12, 2005. The 18 members of the Commission have been appointed. According to the coalition’s statement of principles, “the majority of their membership raises even greater concern about the health of our communities.”
The list of partners in the coalition determined to fight it includes the Committee of Interns and Residents, District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Communication Workers of America Local 1180, New York State Nurses Association and the Doctor’s Council, as well as the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Make the Road By Walking and many other organizations.
Members of the coalition say that, given the politics in New York, “the outcome of this commission could be unmitigated disaster.”
Coalition members who have lived through other efforts to close, alter, or transition hospitals, say that in New York City almost all of the hospitals proposed for closings were in medically underserved communities and communities of color. Closing a hospital means not only the closing of beds, but also the emergency room and almost always the clinics that provide care on an outpatient basis. It means less medical care available in a community.
Wessler says this latest proposal starts with the assumption that almost one third of the state’s hospital beds, 19,640 of a total 63,000 hospital beds, should be closed. At the same time, Wessler says, it makes no effort to examine the impact this initiative would have in the communities of color, “despite the overwhelming well-documented evidence that there are large disparities in access to care.”
What’s more, there is no provision for making sure that under- and uninsured people in the state would maintain even the current limited access to health care. Despite requirements of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there is no discussion of access to services for the disabled either, except in the long-term care section of the proposal.
Members of the coalition determined to stop or blunt the expected devastating impact of Governor Pataki’s plan are gearing up for a fight.
“Usually we wait for a report to come down and then mount a battle to save hospitals, but this time we’re getting a head start,” Wessler said. “We’re starting to mobilize, we’re doing outreach, community organizing, a political analysis, and we’ve drafted legislation. We’re reaching out to state legislators. This is not a game. We’re not playing. This is serious.”
