MEDICAID EQUITY, NOW!
All New Yorkers deserve equal access to quality healthcare, no matter their income or which community they live in. Yet today in New York, Medicaid pays hospitals and nursing homes less than the actual cost of care for treating low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and children from low-income families.
Failure to fix Medicaid underpayments means severe cuts in mental health services while children and seniors on Medicaid experience difficulty accessing needed health care services. Underpayments push struggling safety net hospitals to the brink, creating longer wait times in emergency rooms, and contributing to dangerous healthcare staffing shortages. They severely harm low-income New Yorkers, especially in our Black and Latino communities, leading to worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancies.
Failure to fully fund medicaid is not an option
Almost half of all New Yorkers rely on the state-funded Medicaid system for their healthcare coverage. And while private insurance pays hospitals 100% or more to cover the cost of hospital care, New York State’s Medicaid program pays hospitals less than the full cost of the care they provide for Medicaid patients.
Medicaid underpayments have created a healthcare crisis in our cities and rural parts of the state that threatens quality of care for all New Yorkers.
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WHAT FULLY FUNDING MEDICAID MEANS FOR NEW YORKERS
New York faces a growing mental health crisis in our schools and on our streets, while hospitals have lost 850 mental health beds in recent years. Full Medicaid funding means hospitals can provide the mental health services people need.
In New York, low-income women are more likely than other women to have potentially life-threatening complications during or after childbirth. Fixing Medicaid underpayments will help ensure that all mothers and babies receive the care they need.
Half of New York hospitals have reported reducing and/or eliminating health services due to short staffing, and the staffing shortage is projected to get worse. New York’s Medicaid program must reimburse the actual cost of delivering care so that hospitals can hire the staff they need to provide quality care to New Yorkers.
A commonsense solution
New York’s leaders must increase Medicaid reimbursements to cover the full cost of care, so that all New Yorkers have access to quality care, no matter their income or where they live.
