New York has been granted final approval to reduce the state health insurance coverage for low-income residents, known as the Essential Plan.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for lowering the eligibility for people with incomes from 250% to 200% of the Federal Poverty Line. This means more than one-million New Yorkers will keep their coverage – but 470,000 will be dropped unless the state intervenes before July.
Michael Kinnucan, health policy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said New York can and should provide an alternative for people losing this coverage.
“Even without raising taxes in this fiscal year,” he said, “the state is in a position – with existing money we have on hand that we were going to use for a different purpose, we can repurpose that money – to completely protect this entire population.”
He said funds were set aside in Hochul’s 2027 budget proposal, which includes $2.5 billion to help Essential Plan enrollees if the state had not gotten approval to shrink the plan. A Community Service Society of New York report finds that would be just enough to guarantee this population would maintain health coverage.
The budget should be finalized by April 1.
Health insurance is already harder to afford after Affordable Care Act subsidies expired last year, and the federal budget megabill cut social safety-net programs.
People with ACA plans have a grace period before they’re cut off from coverage. Leslie Dach, who chairs Protect Our Care, said many are using this period to address their annual health care needs.
“They are basically front-loading all their health care – because either they know they only have a month or two, or they know that they can pay their premiums through part of the year,” she said. “So, they’re going to try to get all their tests and everything done early.”
Another facet of the problem is that the federal megabill made large cuts to Medicaid, which critics say will leave hospitals and clinics without enough funding to provide care for low-income patients. One report predicts these Medicaid cuts will have a $13 billion impact on the state’s health care system, with an $8 billion hit to New York hospitals.
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