I’ve introduced a bill, A.5389, to provide all New Yorkers with universal, comprehensive health care coverage. The plan, “New York Health,” replaces insurance company coverage, premiums, co-pays, and limited choices of providers. Instead, it would provide publicly-sponsored coverage with a benefit package more comprehensive than most commercial health plans, with full choices of doctors and other providers. The bill is sponsored in the State Senate by Bill Perkins as S.2078. The legislation has 83 cosponsors.
President Obama said, ‘No American should ever spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.’ But it shouldn’t be just our golden years.
Health care should be a right, not a privilege. Coverage should be driven by the needs of patients, not insurance companies and stockholders.
For most people, New York Health will represent a net income savings compared to the current, regressive system of insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.
No one would have to give up their preferred doctors or other providers. Instead of individuals and employers paying high premiums, deductibles and co-pays, the coverage would be funded through a graduated tax on income, based on ability to pay. New Yorkers would be covered for all medically necessary services including primary, preventive, and specialist care; hospital; mental health; reproductive health; dental; vision; prescription drug; and medical supply costs.
New York would be the second state to pass groundbreaking legislation providing for a single-payer health plan. Vermont was the first, in 2011.
Single payer models have dramatically lower administrative costs than private insurance. In 2009, the New York State Department of Health and Insurance Department found that a single-payer system would provide universal coverage at a lower total cost than plans relying on private, employer-based coverage.
