In his annual State of the State Address delivered on January 5, 2000, New York Governor George E. Pataki praised the new Health Care Reform Act 2000 (HCRA 2000), which the Legislature passed last year and Governor Pataki signed into law on December 30, 1999. "Our new HCRA law gives up to one million additional New Yorkers access to quality, comprehensive, and compassionate health care," the Governor said. "It expands coverage while dramatically reducing the costs [to] businesses and consumers." The Governor went on to praise the State's continued commitment to the funding of teaching hospitals. HCRA 2000, he said, "preserves our State's longstanding commitment to training medical students, and it allows us to fund innovative programs for cancer prevention and rural health care." In the Address, which was delivered before a joint session of the New York State Legislature, the Governor also pledged to continue to expand enrollment in Child Health Plus; adopt "a comprehensive program that will provide a broad range of expanded services for New Yorkers with mental illness, including additional treatment, and increased residential and case management services for both children and adults"; reduce "potentially deadly" asthma attacks by 50%; ensure that all children in New York receive all of their vaccinations by their second birthday; "launch aggressive programs to eliminate the scourge of teenage smoking and reduce it by 50% in the next five years"; ensure that every child is screened for deafness; continue to protect infants born to HIV-infected mothers "to ensure that virtually none of them develop[s] AIDS"; and increase funding for the Wadsworth Center for infectious disease identification and response resources. "New York has the finest, most sophisticated health care system in America," the Governor declared. "There's no reason why we cannot achieve these goals. And we will."