WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (April 5, 2019) – The Westchester County Association (WCA) and Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation (HVEDC) held its All Access Healthcare: Inside the Key Issues Facing New York State event to discuss important issues that impact the region’s hospital and healthcare system, and the direct impacts of those issues on the local business community.
The organizations partnered with the Healthcare Association of New York State Trustee Association, which is comprised of hospital board members who are business and community leaders. The goal was to educate them and other members of the business community about complex healthcare policy issues that affect everyone.
“We at the WCA are very passionate about doing everything we can to make sure our healthcare sector remains strong,” said WCA President and CEO William M. Mooney, Jr. “The healthcare sector is a regional combined engine of almost $18 billion that employs over 50,000 employees. … My hope is that once we are all educated, we will come together as the business and the healthcare community and storm the halls of Albany to let the legislators hear from a unified voice.”
Bea Grause, President of the Healthcare Association of New York State, provided an update on the recently passed state budget to an audience of more than 160 at the Doubletree Hotel in Tarrytown.
“For healthcare, it was a very good result,” she said. “As you may remember there was a $2.3 billion budget hole announced in late January and we had to work hard to close that hole. We protested against those cuts and those cuts were largely restored. Good news for now, but I don’t think it will last due to the increasing pressures that the State has in part due to what is happening at the federal level.”
Grause noted the State is facing key healthcare issues going forward and explained what is driving the State’s healthcare economy. She said there’s an aging population and a growing epidemic of chronic illness (such as diabetes, obesity, cardiac disease and Alzheimer’s disease). New issues, such as the opioid epidemic, are challenging the industry. The industry is also continuing to evolve as technology is decentralizing healthcare from the doctor’s office or the hospital to the home. She also noted the dynamic of a changing state Legislature (including 15 new state senators), which is unified and aggressively tackling big issues.
The State is considering mandated nurse staffing ratios, which would impose nurse-to-patient ratios in every New York hospital and nursing home, regardless of size, location or the needs of their patients and overriding the judgment of individual healthcare professionals.
“Rigid government-mandated nurse staffing ratios does not equal patient safety,” she said.
A group of patient-focused healthcare and other organizations, including the Westchester County Association, has formed The Coalition for Safe & Affordable Care. These organizations believe nurse staffing ratios would have the opposite intended effect, and negatively impact healthcare by creating steep increases in staffing costs that will force hospitals and long-term care facilities to close and reduce access to care and services, among other items.
Nurse-patient staffing ratio and single-payer legislation were the subject of a panel facilitated by Kevin Dahill, President and CEO of The Suburban Alliance. In addition to Grause, panelists included Daniel Blum, President and CEO, Phelps Hospital and Normet Chair; Eric Linzer, President and CEO, NY Health Plan Association; and Dan Cence, Executive Vice President, Solomon and McCown.
Cence led a campaign against similar proposed state legislation in Massachusetts, rallying the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and is now helping the New York coalition.
“Legislators need to hear from trusted leaders in their communities,” he said. “You need to tell them, ‘You need to stop this and this is why.’”
Linzer, discussing the single-payer legislation (New York Health Care Act – government-run healthcare), said his concern with implementing this legislation is that it will result in a disruption in health coverage for millions of New Yorkers, create massive tax increases for residents and businesses in New York State, and impact the healthcare delivery system – doctors, hospitals, administrators and nurses who will feel the change directly.
