New York Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a $100 million plan that he said would provide affordable “healthcare for all,” reaching about 600,000 undocumented immigrants, low-income residents not enrolled in Medicaid and young workers who consider current insurance plans too expensive.
The proposed city-funded health insurance option would assign a primary care doctor to each plan participant and help patients find specialists if needed. The program will begin later this year in the Bronx and will be available to all New Yorkers in 2021. It will cost at least $100 million annually at full scale, according to the mayor’s office.
The plan, which de Blasio dubbed “NYC Care,” will offer public health insurance on a sliding price scale based on income, the mayor said during an interview Monday morning on MSNBC. De Blasio said the plan, which would be financed out of the city’s public health budget, would ultimately be cost effective in reducing hospital emergency room visits by uninsured patients and by improving the city’s public health.
The plan reflects the priority that Democrats have placed on affordable health care, which was a major issue in the 2018 mid-term elections that have given the party a majority in the House of Representatives. De Blasio, 57, has traveled around the nation during the past five years seeking to establish himself as a spokesman for progressive Democrats.
‘Republicans in Washington have been trying to tear down health care,” de Blasio said. “We’re doing the opposite.”
When asked why people should pay to insure undocumented immigrants, de Blasio answered: “You can pay me now or you can pay me later. If we don’t help people get the health care, we’re going to pay plenty on the back-end when people get really sick.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.