Watch: New Yorkers Call on Hochul to Back NY Health Act in Face of Massive Budget Cuts

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By Joe Maniscalco

Instead of allowing the gutting of Medicare and Medicaid, as the latest GOP budget bill does, angry New Yorkers took to the streets of lower Manhattan on Wednesday July 30, in an effort to rally support for passage of the NY Health Act.

Supporters of the NY Health Act march down Broadway this week.

The stage has been set following passage of the “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” in Congress for millions of Americans to lose healthcare in the very near future—1.5 million of them in New York Alone.

But instead of massive austerity measures negatively impacting local New York hospitals, nursing homes, community health centers, and home care programs, protesters assembling in Foley Square this week demanded the billionaire class “Pay What They Owe, Pay Their Fair Share.”

The New York Health Act (S3425/A1466), advocates insist, would save the State of New York billions of dollars every year while covering the medical costs of all New Yorkers.

Introduced way back in the early 1990s by retired Assembly Member Dick Gottfried, the New York Health Act has some significant support from legislators in both houses of the State Legislature. Many public sector unions, however, oppose the legislation resulting in it continuing to languish in committee.

Marching in support of Medicare & Medicaid: New Yorkers march passed the gates of City Hall.

Last fall, New York City municipals retirees who have spent four years fighting back against efforts to push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan held a “die-in” outside insurance industry giant Aetna’s offices at One Soho Plaza in support of the NY Health Act.

In October, a United Federation of Teachers spokesperson told Work-Bites that the union “supports a national approach to Medicare for All,” but that at the state level “the New York Health Act must provide the same high-quality healthcare our members currently have as well as be financially sustainable. So far, it is not clear how both goals will be achieved, and so we will continue to meet with the bill sponsors.”

Supporters of the New York Health Act, however, insist enacting the legislation would only make unions stronger by making it easier to organize, increase membership, and freeing them up to concentrate on bread and butter issues like wages and working conditions.

At Wednesday’s rally, more than 100 demonstrators marking the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid called on Governor Kathy Hochul and local lawmakers to convene a special session on the New York Health Act.