GNYHA, 1199 SEIU Prepare Lawsuit

Last week, both houses of the NYS Legislature voted overwhelmingly to override most of Gov. George E. Pataki’s line-item budget vetoes, including all of his vetoes of the Legislature’s Medicaid funding restorations for hospitals, nursing homes, and beneficiaries. In addition, the Legislature overrode the Governor’s vetoes of funding increases, including the increase in the Medicaid reimbursement rate for hospital emergency visits and funding for displaced hospital workers, for nursing home quality improvements, and for home health worker recruitment and retention activities.

These actions mean that the Legislature rejected all the Governor’s proposed cuts to hospitals, nursing homes, Medicaid, and Family Health Plus not once but twice. The GNYHA/1199 SEIU Healthcare Education Project mounted a formidable advocacy campaign to help ensure that the Legislature had public backing for overriding the Governor’s vetoes, including a direct mail campaign that included nearly 2 million pieces, television and radio advertisements that ran Statewide, and traditional grassroots advocacy. GNYHA is extremely grateful for the leadership of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and for the support of so many Senate and Assembly members who voted to ensure that the health care system upon which all New Yorkers rely is not damaged by harmful Medicaid cuts.

Governor’s Reaction: Unfortunately, the Governor has taken the unprecedented position that, despite the Legislature’s overrides, his original cuts are the law of the land. He contends that the Legislature restored Medicaid funding in ways that violate the State Constitution, under his own, novel interpretation of the State Court of Appeals 2004 decision known as Silver v. Pataki. Further, under the terms of another decision, New York City Council v. Bloomberg, the Governor claims he is not bound to honor actions by the State Legislature that he deems unconstitutional. The Legislature disagrees vehemently with such interpretations of past Court of Appeals decisions, which, in effect, would allow the Governor to decide unilaterally which laws he will implement and which laws he will ignore. In order to protect GNYHA members from the Governor’s proposed cuts, if he takes steps to gain Federal approval to impose them, GNYHA and 1199 SEIU are preparing to take him to court to ensure that the cuts are not implemented and that new funding enacted by the Legislature, including the increase in funding for emergency rooms and nursing home quality improvement, are actually implemented.

Campaign Continues: In anticipation of Gov. Pataki carrying out his threat to ignore the State Legislature’s override of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding cuts to hospitals, the Healthcare Education Project announced last week that it will spend $1 million to air two television advertisements statewide that powerfully convey how the Governor’s cuts would devastate New York’s already financially fragile hospitals and force them to reduce key staff, services, and access to care. The two 30-second spots feature a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse and mother of a baby born prematurely, respectively. The NICU nurse describes the lifesaving work that occurs in her hospital’s NICU every day (see page 1), and the mother, with her healthy infant on her lap, declares that her son would not be alive were it not for her hospital’s NICU. Both spots include, on a blank screen, the words “Governor Pataki’s budget cuts mean hospitals across New York will close,” and urge viewers to call the Governor and tell him to stop the cuts.

“These ads show how disastrous the Governor’s health care cuts will be to New York’s hospitals,” said GNYHA President Kenneth E. Raske. “Without question, these cuts will be the death blow to a number of hospitals throughout the State.”

“Communities all across the State have already suffered tremendous economic disruptions due to health care providers closing and downsizing,” said 1199 SEIU President Dennis Rivera. “The people who live in these communities have been forced to find another emergency room, hospital, or nursing home to take care of themselves and their families. With these ads we are saying, ‘Enough.’”

In addition to the new TV ads, the Healthcare Education Project will continue to spend the necessary resources, including the possibility of running ads in other venues, to educate New Yorkers about the terrifying real world consequences of the Governor’s unilateral attack on New York’s health care community. ¦