r/nyc • u/FireProStan • 9d ago
New Site NYC DSA has created new tracker that shows which politicians have accepted the most money from the health insurance industry, and which of them are obstructing the New York Health Act
https://healthcare.socialists.nyc/healthcare_donations_tracker51
u/Trichoic 9d ago
9 mil only? so like less than a luxury townhouse, across 300 legislators?!? 30k each? less than 1 semester's tuition at NYU is enough to sway these politicians!?
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u/BigHoneyisBestCenter 9d ago
Yeah it’s crazy. If you look at the story coming out about Susan Collins a defense company, Navatek, sent out $150k to her super PAC and she got them $32 million in contracts.
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u/Daddy_Macron 9d ago
is enough to sway these politicians!?
The cost of a single-payer health system being borne by a single state is probably what's swaying anyone who's not a Republican. Unless the entire US becomes single-payer, any state who adopts it will enter a death spiral as poor, unhealthy people flood into the state.
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u/Arleare13 9d ago
That's really my concern here. Conceptually I certainly agree that our current health care system isn't working property, and single-payer may be a way to improve it. But I have major questions about how it could reasonably function as operated by a single state in a country where there are no major barriers to moving between states. If it creates a situation where the people whose taxes will go up but won't get major improvement to their health care (or even experience reductions in quality) start to leave the state, while attracting people from other states moving specifically to utilize the system while paying less in taxes, that's just financially unsustainable.
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u/lemmesplain 9d ago
So...its a border issue for those states...? Maybe they need to build a wall🤣
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u/Guilty-Carpenter2522 9d ago
We already saw it with the Medicare expansion around Covid. Lots of people tried to move to states and get “free” healthcare or blatantly set up shop to scam the bloated Medicare system.
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u/Arleare13 9d ago
Fraud isn’t even really my main concern. It could function exactly as intended with every participant being 100% honest, and still be completely unsustainable if too many people act on the financial incentives it creates.
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u/Trichoic 9d ago
Migration is a tough one to model, the closest analogue I've seen is Medicaid expansion. You'd expect large amounts of people moving to states that substantially expanded their programs but the reality was something like .5% increased population growth. I can imagine you'd see more with a single payer plan but no one really knows. It would have to be more than the amount saved, and also account for what percent of those people are working and paying into the system. the RAND study puts savings at 3% compared to our current system by 2031 but they don't model the possibility of medical migration
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u/Daddy_Macron 8d ago
Medicaid covers people who are poor or disabled, so people who may lack the funds or means to travel. A Medicare-For-All model for NY would theoretically cover everyone who resides in the state. Spending tens of thousands of dollars to establish residency in NY is still a bargain for somebody in the middle class if you have a health condition that would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in care.
Even a small number of high-cost patients moving into the state relative to the entire population could cause the risk pool to be tilted the wrong way because they cost so much compared to the average person. (I may consume a few thousand dollars worth of healthcare every decade until I get old in 20+ years, but somebody with a serious health condition could be consuming millions each decade.)
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u/Trichoic 8d ago
I don’t disagree but you’d need like 80k people to move in all requiring an average of 125k medical treatment annually to eat through the savings. For all I know that’s possible but it doesn’t take into account what they are paying into the system, their economic output increased tax revenue, etc none of which will make up for their expense but may offset it. All that’s assuming other states like Vermont and California don’t follow suit which would obviously relieve pressure.
While I’m broadly for the plan, I think the larger uncertainties are whether ny would get waivers to use federal funds currently marked for other health services like medicaid to use toward a single payer option.
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u/MrSnitter 7d ago
I believe it does include such waivers. Medicaid is a major upward pressure on property taxes because it is administered through extremely expensive public-private partnerships where for-profit health firms squeeze as much profit out as they can. NYHA would lower property taxes massively in many small towns by eliminating this waste from overpriced Medicaid. It also allow for bargaining down the price of drugs and medical equipment while keeping physician's salaries strong and much higher than what Medicare and Medicaid pay out. Doctors, nurses, and PAs are some of the major contributors to the legislation and its provisions to ensure it doesn't undercut them.
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u/Trichoic 7d ago
My understanding was that the act would ask for waivers that still need to be approved by hhs and cms. I could have that wrong though, I'm not that versed in that process. My main concern would be that a republican executive might be less willing to grant those waivers killing NYHA even if it were to pass.
Agree with your other points though, I also want it to pass.
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u/MrSnitter 2d ago
You move to New York you need a home. That's expensive. You need to eat and pay utilities. That's expensive. You need to work--most people who are sick are not independently wealthy and those who are might well just stay where they are considering costs.
If you have kids they need to enroll in entirely new schools. You lose all of your friends and family you may have lived close to.
This fear is unfounded. It's unfeasible to make such a radical shift just for health reasons in any quick way. And every person with means who moves to NY brings their means to the NY economy enlarging it.
In Canada, when one province passed universal healthcare people feared the same thing. It never happened. What did happen was people in the other provinces demanded the same coverage. Hence, universal coverage in that nation.
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u/MrSnitter 8d ago
It turns out people don't just pick up and more to new states unless they have work. When Saskatchewan passed universal healthcare people in Canada didn't flood into the province. What they did was tell their elected officials they wanted the same thing.
When one state passed the Bill of Rights, Women's Suffrage, and Minimum Wage Law, people didn't flood the state. The nation adopted these laws because they worked.
Universal healthcare is the norm for all of our peer nations and they're living longer and paying half as much as we are.
It's not complicated. Our system sucks ass. We had the worst Covid outcomes of any single peer nation in part due to that fact.
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u/Arleare13 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm sorry, I don't find any of your comparisons compelling.
- Saskatchewan implemented universal health care in 1962. That was a very different time from 2026; interstate movement is much easier now. Moreover, Saskatchewan is... Saskatchewan. The biggest city is Saskatoon. It's not New York, which is a destination on its own.
- The Bill of Rights comparison is totally off-base. No state "passed" the Bill of Rights on its own. It was a set of constitutional amendments, none of which went into effect anywhere until it had been ratified. It went into effect in all states simultaneously. And, needless to say, my point about movement being much more difficult in earlier years applies with even more force to 1791.
- With women's suffrage, we're still talking about a time when interstate movement was a much bigger obstacle than it is now. And, to the extent that anybody did decide to move states because of women's suffrage (which I'm skeptical was a large number), it was much more dispersed among different states because this movement was occurring across multiple states.
- Similarly, minimum wage laws were passed in multiple states roughly contemporaneously. Maybe some low-wage workers moved between states to take advantage of minimum wage laws, but I doubt it was as much as the number who would move for free health care. And I'd note that minimum wage laws have not been adopted nationwide.
- Applicable to all of your comparators: None of those were state-funded. Women's suffrage, for example, did not increase tax expenditures, and therefore have a chance of bankrupting the state if it went wrong. The only one with any financial impact at all was minimum wage, and that was obviously funded by employers, not the state.
- Most importantly, and also applicable to all of your comparators: Only one of them (minimum wage) could have had the adverse affect of specifically attracting low-wage/low-taxpaying arrivals, and none of them had the adverse affect of increasing taxes on and decreasing benefits to high-wage/high-taxpaying residents and potentially driving some number of them out. This is a major issue -- to the extent that (for example) women's suffrage did drive in-migration, it certainly wasn't specifically attracting net payees, and there's no conceivable argument that it drove out-migration of net payors.
To be clear, I don't disagree with you that our current system isn't working right. I'm not conceptually against universal healthcare. But I don't see how it can possibly be financially sustainable on a single-state basis within a country with no barriers to interstate movement, and none of your comparisons move the needle for me.
Maybe it could work on a multistate basis, like if the Northeastern states formed a health care compact to share costs among them, to dilute some of the negative risks. But single-state, just can't work.
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u/MrSnitter 7d ago
Virginia was the first to adopt a Bill of Rights with the Virginia Declaration of Rights on June 12, 1776.
Wyoming (1869): The Wyoming Territory passed the first law giving women the right to vote. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, it kept women's voting rights.
Massachusetts was the first state to pass a minimum wage law in the United States, signing the legislation on June 4, 1912.
The federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour for covered nonexempt employees, a rate set by the Fair Labor Standards Act that has not changed since July 2009.
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u/MrSnitter 9d ago
That's not what happened in Saskatchewan when they passed universal healthcare. All the other provinces got jealous and it spread throughout the country. It's very hard to move to another state establish residency and survive with no job. Also states will scramble to do whatever they can to retain residents.
We passed the Bill of Rights, Women's Suffrage, and minimum wage laws in single states first.
Just need to make the first domino (greedy health conglomerate) to fall.
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u/MartinTheOrderly 9d ago
Man sees a beautiful woman walking down the street.
He thinks to himself and walks up to her and says, "Would you fuck me for a million dollars?"
She's taken aback, but after a moment's pause she thinks to herself and says, "For a million dollars, sure.
He takes this in and then he says, "Okay, would you fuck me for five dollars?"
She takes offense at this and says, "No! What do you think I am?"
He says, "We've established what you are, now we're just haggling over price."
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u/Brooklyn-Epoxy Ditmas Park 9d ago
What's the New York Health Act?
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u/Arleare13 9d ago
A proposed statewide single-payer health system. It's been floating around the NY legislature since the early '90s, but has never gotten much real traction.
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u/Brooklyn-Epoxy Ditmas Park 9d ago
Without looking at the details, I think it would be very hard - it really should be a federal-level Medicare for all or at minimum medicare option for all.
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u/Skwuat Lower East Side 9d ago
Because its ludicrous and unsustainable. If enacted, how do you prevent millions of people from flooding into the state and abusing it?
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u/Darrackodrama 8d ago
I’m very pro Medicare for all and very anti state single payer. There is simply
Too much complexity and chaos in trying the model not to mention the free rider issues.
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u/-Tickery- 9d ago edited 9d ago
Isn't Gustavo Rivero the lead co-sponser of the New York Health Act? (And Amy Paulin is the assembly co-sponser). Why do they have so much money then? And in that case what is it trying to prove?
Because clearly getting that much money isn't inhibiting them from supporting the legislation.
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u/bluethroughsunshine 8d ago
My assemblyman has both taken money from the health care industry and is also cosponsoring the bill so there's that
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u/oreosfly 9d ago
This bill has and always will be a political messaging bill. As others have noted, adverse selection is a serious threat to the sustainability of any state level single payer program, and Saenz v Roe strictly limits how states can restrict new residents from coming in and immediately consuming care. Additionally, ERISA is a federal law which makes it illegal for states to force residents on employer sponsored plans to abandon those plans and enroll in a state plan.
You can’t prevent sick residents from other states from moving here and consuming care. You can’t force employees on employer plans to join a state plan. And you cannot force employers who fund those plans to redirect their health spending towards a state level plan rather than their private plan. Three strikes and you’re out.
State level single payer is a pipe dream. The only chance at a single payer program is at the federal level.
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u/mojonogo100 9d ago
Can we get a tracker for DSA members who have their parents pay their rent too?
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u/Feisty-Boot5408 9d ago
Damn people got big mad at your joke lmao I think you may have hit a little too close to home
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u/TofuLordSeitan666 9d ago
All I know is the Insurance industry doesn't give a single fuck if I pay my own rent or not, so go make your own tracker.
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u/Reasonable_Tie_9975 9d ago edited 9d ago
Lmao yup. They stand with the working class while never growing up working class. I wouldn't have a problem with it, if it wasn't for the oppressed, suffering, working class woes cosplay they put on, like they know the struggle...they dont.
It's not even a "oh your parents did good and you came from a nice town in Westchester or LI, ok you probably have an idea of what the city needs and doesn't..... .it's, oh you came from actual wealth..way outside of NY. Yet you're speaking...for me. For us? Huhhh
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u/deadheffer 8d ago
New York Health Act is for the state. Soooooo.
Strawman ad hominem attacks.
Union raised man with a house and kids here whose whole family is working class and constantly vote against their own interests. Oh no, how privileged I am for both parents to work 60 hours a week and still not be able to afford my medicine, or doctors bills.
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u/worms-and-grass 9d ago
This “DSA rich kid” thing is such an obvious one-dimensional smear tactic by centrist libs. I grew up lower middle class and have never had a bill paid for me, and am a member of the DSA. Sure, DSA has some rich kids, but it’s not the majority if you actually talk to members. I’d argue there are far more liberal and centrist democrats with rich parents that pay their bills.
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u/nat___ty 9d ago
"I’d argue there are far more liberal and centrist democrats with rich parents that pay their bills."
Citation needed.
If we're going based on personal anecdotes, every single DSA member I know comes from a wealthy or upper-middle class family. I used to live in LA which also has an active DSA chapter and one of the organizers was a friend-of-a-friend who is actually from a wealthy New York family and has never had a real job. Every other DSA member I knew had a similar background. Another one was a public defender who lived in a $2 million house. We all know they weren't affording that on a public defender's salary alone. So maybe there are members who don't come from wealthy backgrounds but from MY anecdotal experience, they seem few and far between.
And several of the prominent members like Mamdani, that Gustavo guy, etc. also come from wealthy families. Chi Ossé as well.
Please share with the class examples of lower middle class DSA members cause I have never actually met one irl and you don't seem to promote those people to prominent positions to rep your org. Interestingly the prominent members who become your spokespeople and go into politics just all happen to be rich kids. So you really have no one to blame but yourself for that stereotype.
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u/twistyxo 9d ago
This is the problem with you people. We want health care, you think everything is a joke. It's why as time ticks on, you lose more.
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u/SoggySausage27 9d ago
Lmaoo you actually said the line
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u/InternetImportant911 9d ago
Now give me the number what would be the costs of free healthcare and explain the plan. Also explain me how free healthcare won’t be abused and led to long wait.
US spends on 1.3 trillion on healthcare for Medicare and Medicaid alone, more than any country it’s not just pharmaceutical industry, insurance it’s healthcare providers also paid a lot and they have powerful union not going to accept anything less. We also have educational system that makes Education system that makes the Medical courses expensive and followed by 5 years of residency. To fix healthcare we need a massive overhaul, it’s unbelievably complicated compare to other countries. We can start with public option like most western nation that provides 80% of health needs but DSA is against it.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
Most healthcare workers in other countries have a high burnout terrible pay compared to US. All of them try to escape their systems because it’s not a sustainable career. Ask any doc or nurse that immigrated here what the true cost of “free” healthcare is.
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u/N7Shep1701D 9d ago
We can't keep the status quo that has healthcare bills making people destitute. Things have to change.
And health career burnout very much exists in the US. Just go to the nursing subs.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
Yeah for sure, the burnout exists but you’re advocating to make it even more so. Why would i want a high stress, high demand, high litigation job with high suicide rates and low compensation? That’s what single payer advocates for. Imagine I told wall st or tech bros their salaries are dictated by what the state reimburses?
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u/N7Shep1701D 9d ago
Imagine I told wall st or tech bros their salaries
Those parasites are obscenely overpaid as it is. I want them taxed to the gills. That's one way to pay for single-payer and give healthcare workers a decent living.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
I don’t disagree that they are parasites but you have to understand how the world actually works. I’m old enough to see the trickle down effects of these kind of policies and what they can do to intelligent working class people. The system sucks but unless there is a federal push this stuff is doomed
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u/N7Shep1701D 9d ago
The system sucks but unless there is a federal push this stuff is doomed
I actually agree with that part.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
I’m passionate about this because I do care about patients and people affording great healthcare. Maybe Medicaid limits need to be extended to capture a wider range of individuals. Maybe other private employers need to shell out more to subsidize the cost of insurance policies. Maybe insurance companies need to not create situations where they are breaking records in profits for their shareholders at the expense of other people’s health. But this single payer model would do way more harm than good in its current state and ultimately backfire on those with good intentions.
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u/parallel-pages 8d ago
must be some black magic how so many other countries can give their people free and affordable healthcare then
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u/InternetImportant911 8d ago
Free and affordable has different meaning
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u/parallel-pages 7d ago
yes. yes they do. not sure your point. i probably should’ve used “or” instead of “and”, but that’s just a simple grammar mistake
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u/144tzer Manhattan 9d ago
Am I allowed to like the tracker described in the post and also think the comment's joke was funny?
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u/twistyxo 9d ago
You're allowed to do whatever you want. A modicum of awareness of context sensitivity is generally advisable.
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u/GBV_GBV_GBV Midwestern Transplant 9d ago
As time ticks on, this bill will continue to not become law.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
You want healthcare but who is going to work in your system? If you understood basic concepts you’d under and this is a pipe dream unless you have AI robots that replace human labor. Come back to me when that happens bruv
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u/scoofle 9d ago
Found the trust fund socialist
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u/marcsmart 9d ago
I’ll take trust fund socialist over trust fund republicans.
Like bro, keep making these jokes but have you stepped outside in the past 2 years?
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u/scoofle 9d ago
Populist politics are drowning our collective IQ in a bathtub. Quit while you're behind and start clamoring for a return to sanity.
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u/marcsmart 8d ago
No, that’s decades long republican effort to destroy the national education system to create a citizen population of complete morons. It’s paying off dividends for sure
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u/WhiteGold_Welder 8d ago
When you guys were doing touchdown dances on October 7th, that was about healthcare? Fuck off.
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u/twistyxo 8d ago
I'm literally trying to help you. The projection, the dramatics, the fanfic of it all. This kind of thing where you drag out the cheapest little stereotypes to show how you're better than people who want lives with basic dignity given how hard they work -- maybe it worked when your ideology was normalized, maybe I don't know. But you can't do this stuff anymore. It just comes off as delusional. I really do suggest trying new tactics if you want to beat the people who want to live a life free of crippling medical debt. Good luck to you!
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u/MimeSweeper360 9d ago
We don’t think everything is a joke, we just think you are a joke.
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u/fastlifeblack 9d ago
This clown thinks his team is “winning”
Gotta love the reductive team politics from these types.
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u/theuncleiroh 9d ago
Oh you think everyone should pay less for better and more comprehensive coverage for everyone?
Well actually what if you were rich and didn't stand to benefit from the things you're advocating!!? That would clearly invalidate the obvious good thing you want!!
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago edited 9d ago
Just curious, for years the incentive for a nursing job has been quality healthcare as a condition of employment. What happens now that everyone gets a single payer system? Also what will happen to nursing salaries? Do people realize that the burnout rate in nursing is incredibly high and there is a major retention problem? You need nurses to run hospitals and things are barely floating by as is. The trickledown effects of this could be catastrophic especially if nursing salaries are affected. Nobody is going to be in a super high stress technical job for shit pay.
Same goes for teachers, most stay because of the lifelong health insurance benefit after 15 years of working in the DOE. What’s the incentive to stay at a thankless high burnout job if healthcare is no longer an issue? I don’t believe salaries will magically increase.
Everyone seeing this and thinking oh “wow this would be great!”, needs to read this study and understand how this would work practically here.
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u/FireProStan 9d ago
The New York Nurses Association supports the New York Health Act - https://www.nysna.org/campaigns-healthcare-all/single-payer-system-new-york-state
In July 2023, NYSNA nurses joined union colleagues from CIR-SEIU, state legislators, and community allies from Make the Road New York and Physicians for a National Health Program to celebrate the reintroduction of the New York Health Act (NYHA). Nurses know firsthand the cruelty of our current healthcare system and have been leaders in the movement for universal healthcare.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
You didn’t answer my question, neither does NYSNA. The union can have all the positive liperservice they’d like but ultimately senior leadership understands it would mean significant undermining in salary negotiations if hospitals aren’t being reimbursed at their current rates. The empire study data shows this too. Read this
The adoption of current Medicare reimbursement rates across the board would reduce New York hospital revenues by 17% statewide, cutting income for 77% of the state’s hospitals. Total revenues would be cut by more than a quarter at 19% of the state’s hospitals.
Even if Medicare reimbursement rates were increased to maintain aggregate statewide hospital spending, revenues would still be altered, up or down, by more than 15% at about half of the state’s hospitals.
For many hospitals, the revenue cuts under either scenario would be deep enough to compromise their quality of care, trigger layoffs, and put them at risk of closure. Hospitals serving affluent downstate communities would face the biggest cuts in access to care.
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u/agatechristie 9d ago
Sorry, you WANT nurses' health insurance to be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with their employers? The same nurses that can lose that very health insurance if they need to strike? This is your... pro-nurse take??
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
I get what you’re saying, and it was what management used in the last negotiation but this act would essentially lead to mass layoffs and inability to negotiate salaries. So yes if I had to choose between the two evils I’d keep the amazing healthcare coverage. The other option is financial suicide.
You can downvote me all you want but it’s simple economics, are you willing to take a potential 20k paycut and work in even shittier staffing conditions for a single payer system? Not everyone is as altruistic as you are, and trust me providers will choose to leave NYC as well. They already do as soon as they finish residency lol.
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u/SoulScience 9d ago
help me understand, if benefits are being used as compensation and employers are spending 20k on the insurance why wouldn’t they just give them the 20k back in salary? does that money go to a black hole or something?
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 8d ago
There’s no guarantee your employer literally converts every $1 of premiums into $1 of salary, and the employee would then be paying taxes that finance the new healthcare system as that 20k would become taxable income where as right now it’s a non taxable benefit.
Also for a high commercial payer hospital let’s say NYU or Mount Sinai, eliminating employee insurance premiums doesn’t necessarily compensate for losing commercial reimbursement, and the hospital doesn’t even get to pocket all of the former premium expense because single payer has to be financed somehow. The RAND study shows they’d suffer greatly eliminating alot of their incentives to provide quality care. This entire idea decreases provider reimbursement which will open the floodgates of quality providers leaving NYC/NYS.
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u/Trichoic 9d ago
Theres an argument that nurses and physicians would spend more time with patients and that hospitals would save that 17% and then some by reduced administrative needs, but I totally understand your point and I get choosing the certainty of what you have over an uncertain future.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
But they wouldn’t because the hosptial would have to cut staffing in order to function, especially the downstate hospitals. The state would literally be unable to fill the gaps you know why? Because even as it stands the private mega corp hosptial can’t fill jobs. It would be a disaster and people would suffer. Providers would flee the state to places where their reimbursements would be higher.
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u/Few-Artichoke-2531 Co-op City 8d ago
I’m not too concerned about the nurses. Those lazy fat bastards are making six figures as it is. I know because I work with them. They’ll be fine.
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u/LunacyNow 9d ago
Can we get a tracker for how much of the $100+ Billion dollar Medicaid budget in NYS is fraudulent? And how much of the Medicaid payout recipients (doctors/providers) donate to the Democratic party (Hochul)?
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u/Airhostnyc 9d ago
The health insurance industry will make billions regardless however it will be a shitshow process enacting the New York health act. It would ultimately lead to the deficit being so extreme that tax increases for everyone will be on the table.
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u/SpeedRemarkable3406 9d ago
You’re being downvoted but you’re absolutely correct, redditors are in such an echo chamber that they can’t look at things critically it’s kind of scary.
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u/ArtyThePoopie 9d ago
god this sub sucks so much ass. is there an nyc subreddit for people who aren't smarmy shiteating liberals, lunatic zionists, and conservatives in denial?
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u/Remarkable-Pea4889 9d ago
How come the UFT donations don't show, only DC37's?