NYC Health-Care Workers Mobilize Against Massive Medicaid Cuts

Health-care workers rally outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital this week to protest plans to cut $1 nearly trillion from Medicaid.

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By Steve Wishnia

“Medicaid! “Saves Lives!” health-care workers chanted in call-and- response outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights June 23. The overhead passageway between two buildings provided a bit of shade but no protection from the 93-degree heat. “Keep the hospitals open,” called out a woman with “Healthcare Hero” on the back of her shirt, despite the oppressive temps. 

The rally, a rotating cast of dozens of people in purple 1199SEIU T-shirts, maroon scrubs, and navy-blue mechanics’ gear, and environmental-services workers in sky-blue hair coverings, was one of 11 street actions the union organized in New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley to protest congressional plans to cut close to $1 trillion from Medicaid in next year’s federal budget.

“I feel like people don’t know how serious this is,” Mark Co, a pediatric emergency room technician and union delegate, told Work-Bites. “So many of our patients in this hospital rely on it.”

The budget bill passed by the House May 22 would cut Medicaid by $793 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. It projected that along with other cuts to low-income health coverage, it would leave 10.9 million people uninsured—and 16 million by 2034.

The Senate version now being considered would cut almost $900 billion.

Those cuts “will trigger hospital closings,” 1199SEIU says. “It’s going to cut care in the hospitals for the elderly, the young, everybody,” said Angela, an X-ray technician. It would also mean fewer patients and more layoffs, said electrician Ronald Funchess. A shortage of supplies and longer waiting times would also result, Co added.

“Hands Off Medicaid”: Health-care workers are fired up and mobilized against looming Medicaid cuts.

About 7 million New Yorkers, more than one-third of the state’s population, are enrolled in Medicaid. Nationally, 71 million people are. In New York State, it pays the bills for 70% of nursing-home residents; 53% of births; 38% of outpatient hospital services, and 31% of inpatient hospital services, according to state institutional-cost reports from 2023. In New York City, it covers 37% of hospital inpatients and 58% of births.

“I see a lot of patients with complicated conditions,” Co said. “If these kids lose their coverage, their parents won’t be able to pay.” Some children have cardiac problems. Others have genetic conditions that require 24-hour care. And a lot of families bring children “with basic conditions like coughs” to the emergency room because they don’t have a regular doctor.

Medicaid pays for 44% of emergency-room visits in the state and 50% in the city. The federal government covers 64% of the $97.9 billion New York State spends in a year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. About 59% of that money goes to care for elderly or disabled people, who make up 21% of those enrolled.

State Essential Plan targeted

The House budget would also cut off the tax credits it gives New York State for almost half of the 1.5 million people enrolled in the state’s Essential Plan, its low-cost health insurance for people who make less than 2.5 times the federal poverty level, but more than the cutoff for Medicaid, 1.38 times the poverty level.

Non-citizen immigrants are not eligible for federal Medicaid, except with special dispensation: The House budget exempts Cubans. Those “lawfully present” in the country are eligible for the Essential Plan, but the House bill, under the heading “Removing Taxpayer Benefits for Illegal Immigrants,” would change that to “eligible aliens.” That would exclude about 225,000 people who have Temporary Protected Status, were granted asylum or refugee status, or are on work or student visas. Another 500,000 immigrants, including legal permanent residents, who have incomes low enough to qualify for Medicaid would also be barred from the Essential Plan, and moved into state-only Medicaid.

The Greater New York Hospital Association trade group estimates that would cost the state about $7.5 billion and put the Essential Plan’s existence “in grave danger.”

Lobbying in Washington

1199 is also sending 300 members to Washington to lobby against the cuts. “I'm overwhelmed by the number of health-care workers in D.C. now lobbying against these Medicaid cuts,” Ashanti Phillips, an environmental-services worker in labor & delivery at Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo,” said in a message relayed by the union. “We are knocking on doors of Congressmembers on Capitol Hill, but only speaking to their representatives. It’s upsetting that the people we elected aren’t able to take time to hear from us about how these cuts impact our patients.”

Medicaid pays for 44% of emergency-room visits in the state and 50% in the city.

Most of the patients she provides services for rely on Medicaid, she added, “and these cuts would be devastating to children and families.”

Western New York has two House members who voted for the Medicaid cuts, which passed by one vote, 215-214, with only two Republicans voting no. According to the Healthcare Association of New York State, in Rep. Nick Langworthy’s district, the Buffalo suburbs and the Southern Tier east to Elmira, Medicare and Medicaid patients make up 72% of people admitted to hospitals and 64% of outpatients, and provide 58% of hospitals’ revenue from patient services.

In Claudia Tenney’s district, along the Lake Ontario shore except for Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, Medicare and Medicaid patients make up 73% of people admitted to hospitals and 60% of outpatients, and provide 57% of revenue from patient services.

Rep. Tenney told Fox News June 2 that the House budget wouldn’t cut Medicaid, just eliminate fraud and waste. She claimed that 3 million of the New Yorkers on it were ineligible, and she was preserving it for “the truly needy.” In March, she accused Democrats of using Medicaid “to advance their goal of forcing government-run health care on all New Yorkers.”

“Who in their right mind takes health care away from people who can’t speak up?” Co asked. “I don’t understand why we don’t have comprehensive universal health care. It’s not crazy. It’s just baseline.”