House GOP’s ACA Repeal Plan Will Hurt New Yorkers
As the President and Congress consider the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), representing New York’s not-for-profit hospitals and their affiliated nursing homes, home health agencies, and hospices, is urging that any consideration of ACA repeal must ensure replacement would be meaningful for patients in the form of affordable, robust, and continuous health coverage at least as expansive as under ACA; for the State of New York and its localities that jointly support Medicaid; and for hospitals and health systems that need predictable and reasonable public and private coverage policies and appropriate payments to continue the transformation of the healthcare system, safeguarding access to care for all New Yorkers.
The current republican plan to repeal ACA, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), would upend coverage for millions, destabilize insurance markets, cause a fiscal crisis for the state and localities, and profoundly undermine the ability of hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and hospices to transform care, harming their core mission of access to quality care for all New Yorkers.
Contact your members of Congress and tell them to protect healthcare in New York by expressing opposition to AHCA
Five Reasons Why the Current ACA Replacement Plan is a Bad Idea
1. Lost healthcare coverage
Nearly three million New Yorkers will lose healthcare coverage, with dire consequences for individuals and families.
2. Higher Insurance Costs
Lower income and elderly individuals can expect to pay more for their healthcare.
3. Removal of Consumer Protections
The current proposed plan would undo some of the consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act, including guaranteed access to meaningful insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.
4. Job Loss
Billions in healthcare funding loss means services and jobs in local hospitals will be affected.
5. Dire financial problems for local hospitals and health systems
Hospitals will be stuck with more unpaid bills from uninsured people who come to emergency rooms seeking care.
For all these reasons and more, the Affordable Care Act must not be repealed without a sound replacement plan.
Your Hospital Is Critical to Your Community and Your Economy
New York hospitals are improving health, enhancing quality, and reducing costs, and they are the economic engines of your community:
- $141 billion—New York hospitals generate $141 billion in economic activity (jobs and the purchase of goods and services)—10% of the state’s GDP.
- 800,000—New York hospitals are among the largest employers in every region of the state, directly and indirectly generating nearly 800,000 jobs.
- 6 of 10—Six of New York’s top ten private sector employers are hospitals and health systems.
- $8.6 billion—New York’s private, non-profit hospitals provide free care, financial assistance, and other community health improvement programs at a cost of $8.6 billion—14.3% of their total expenses. Importantly, this statewide figure does not include the billions of dollars New York’s 25 public acute care hospitals expend on these activities annually because public hospitals are exempt from this federal reporting requirement.
$20 billion—Repeal of ACA is being considered that would eliminate health coverage expansion, but keep in place the Medicare and Medicaid payment cuts that are part of the original law. Those reductions were the hospital and other providers’ contribution to the cost of expanded coverage. If repeal is a partial repeal and those cuts are maintained, hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and hospices in New York State face $20 billion in reduced payment for services to Medicare beneficiaries over the next ten years; over $1 billion in this year alone. These cuts put the community and economic benefits that your local hospital providers at risk.
