(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) - Budget negotiations are entering their fourth week past the April 1st deadline (which has once again been extended) and Health Care Workers across New York are continuing an unprecedented string of actions to focus attention to the State’s health care crisis that would further deteriorate if Medicaid isn’t funded adequately in the State Budget. 

On Monday (April 24th), Caregivers represented by 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Health Care Workers East walked off the job at 12 noon at the Weinberg Campus in the Buffalo Suburb of Getzville (Pictured Above, 1199 SEIU Photo Via Facebook) to raise the alarm of New York’s health care crisis and the need to close the Medicaid coverage gap in the Fiscal Year 2024 State Budget.

The Workers also called for a reversal of major cuts to funding for Safety Net Hospitals and Homecare Workers’ wages contained in Governor Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal.

1199 SEIU is calling on NY’s Elected Leaders to invest $2.5 billion in health care in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, including the following: Increase Medicaid reimbursement rates by 10% for hospitals and 20% for nursing homes, with no offsets; Restore the $700 million in safety-net funding and increase it by an additional $600 million; Address the disparity in reimbursement rates in Upstate New York, which are approximately 20% lower than Downstate; Preserve the investment made last year in Fair Pay for Home Care to stabilize the Homecare Workforce and undo the drastic and proposed cuts to wages for Workers employed through the consumer-directed program; and Raise the minimum wage to $21.25 by 2027, followed by indexing.

New polling finds New Yorkers - by a 4-to-1 margin, believe a portion of New York’s $8.7 billion surplus should be invested in health care. 

Across party lines, 77% of voters favor the Legislature’s one-house budget proposals to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates so they cover a larger share of the actual cost of care provided by doctors, hospitals and nursing homes. 

New Yorkers rank investing in health care as a higher priority than bail reform, the poll found.

Failure to pass a timely budget has already caused a major lapse in health care funding, including the expiration of the 340b drug pricing program on April 1st, eliminating some $525 million to community hospitals, Union Officials said.

Three years after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in New York, patients and Workers continue to face the pandemic’s aftershocks. 

Safety Net Hospitals are on the brink of closure, emergency rooms are overflowing, nursing home residents face interminably long wait times for bedside care, and homecare services are becoming ever harder to come by.

With stagnating Medicaid funding and a depleted and burnt-out workforce, an austere health care budget would be devastating to New Yorkers, especially seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families.

1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East - whose mission is to achieve quality care and good jobs for all, is the largest and fastest-growing Health Care Union in America, representing more than 450,000 Nurses and caregivers throughout the States of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Florida, as well as in Washington, D.C.