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PEP May 2016
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Public Employee Press


Mayor unveils restructuring plan
City to aid troubled public hospitals

The overhaul of public hospitals aims to address NYC Health + Hospitals' financial crisis while avoiding layoffs and facility closings.

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

In a significant show of support to NYC Health+Hospitals, Mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed a $2 billion infusion of aid to stop a financial hemorrhage that for decades has plagued the nation's largest public health-care system.

"We applaud the mayor for his leadership and ongoing commitment to provide and improve vital services for all who live in our city," said DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido.

Most important to DC 37 and the 18,000 Health+Hospitals workers the union represents is the mayor's plan "excludes facility closures and layoffs," he said.

The de Blasio administration's H+H proposal released on April 26 adds $700 million to reduce the H+H's budget shortfall in 2016, includes $100 million for capital investments at hospitals and clinics, and has land sale and affordable housing tie-ins. It is part of the mayor's executive budget subject to the City Council's vote.

Public hospitals on the frontlines in health emergencies

The mayor's proposals are presented in the report "One New York - Health Care for our Neighborhoods," which is available for download at dc37blog.wordpress.com or from http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/393-16/mayor-de-blasio-one-new-york-health-hospitals-transformation-plan.

NYC Health+Hospitals employees are on the frontlines of health emergencies. Their vigilance successfully stemmed the deadly Ebola virus and Legionnaire's disease.

But H+H, whose network includes 11 hospitals, long-term care facilities, 21 school-based clinics, and home care, faces a deficit that may reach $2 billion by 2019.

"For purely political reasons, the current funding formula for state charity funds allows private hospitals to take the lion's share of monies even though the city's public hospitals provide care for most of the indigent and uninsured patients in the state," Garrido said.

The funding formula shortchange H+H of tens of millions of dollars in critical Medicaid and other federal subsidies.

H+H cares for some 1.2 million New Yorkers annually, regardless of their immigrant status or ability to pay.

Health+Hospitals treats 60 percent of the indigent and uninsured patients in the state, but it only receives 3 percent of the $3.5 billion Albany allocates for those patients each year.

"Until we are able to ensure the proper funding to Health+Hospitals, which provides the most care to the city's most vulnerable populations," Garrido said, "we are not going to be able to maintain a modern, vital system of health care for the families of this city."

DC 37 supports legislation to change current funding formulas. The union has successfully beat back privatization attempts, layoffs and closings - measures this report takes off the table.


 
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