At a Bronx rally packed with supporters, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended the Affordable Care Act and warned that Congress is abandoning the middle class.
“Most families can't spend 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars for private insurance. That is not reality. Most families don't have their names on a hospital wing. That is not reality,” Cuomo said at the event at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the affiliated medical school of Montefiore Health System.
Montefiore, the Bronx's largest health system, and 1199SEIU, the state's largest healthcare union, filled an auditorium with several hundred executives, employees and union members.
Cuomo said the repeal of the ACA could have a devastating impact on New York, citing estimates released in January that the state's Medicaid program could lose by $3.7 billion in funding and that 2.7 million New Yorkers would lose coverage.
He spoke of “healthcare as a human right” and warned of the dangers of people losing their coverage and potentially putting off preventive care.
That message resonated in a room full of doctors, nurses and other healthcare industry workers delivering care in the Bronx, New York state's least healthy county.—Jonathan LaMantia, Crain's New York Business