Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement yesterday that New York City would begin guaranteeing health care for all New Yorkers, through a new program, NYC Care, made for a busy morning.
De Blasio did much talking-declaring that universal health care was a moral imperative, and that New York City would not wait for Washington to recognize that "Health care is a human right"-but he wound up saying very little, because he didn't discuss the plan's cost, propose a budget, or explain why the city needs such a program.
It's no use getting bogged down in that $100 million figure, an estimate tied to the mayor's vague assertion that NYC Care will save money by reducing ER visits-a highly unlikely but typical suggestion of single-payer advocates, who like to claim that their plans will "Pay for themselves." Single-payer plans never pay for themselves, and they almost always cost more than their initial estimates.
That brings us to another peculiar feature of NYC Care: it's not health insurance, but rather, the promise of free health care.
While one of the mayor's goals is to "Boost enrollment in MetroPlus," the city's affordable public option, the main objective is to "Connect hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are ineligible for health insurance ... to reliable care." It's important to take de Blasio at face value on this one: he's going way beyond the city's preexisting safety net and guaranteeing free health services to the city's uninsured.
As with most single-payer plans, NYC Care is about politics as much as it is about health care.
Announcing NYC Care may help de Blasio score some political points, but the odds of it succeeding are low.
https://www.city-journal.org/de-blasio-universal-healthcare-new-yorkers
De Blasio did much talking-declaring that universal health care was a moral imperative, and that New York City would not wait for Washington to recognize that "Health care is a human right"-but he wound up saying very little, because he didn't discuss the plan's cost, propose a budget, or explain why the city needs such a program.
It's no use getting bogged down in that $100 million figure, an estimate tied to the mayor's vague assertion that NYC Care will save money by reducing ER visits-a highly unlikely but typical suggestion of single-payer advocates, who like to claim that their plans will "Pay for themselves." Single-payer plans never pay for themselves, and they almost always cost more than their initial estimates.
That brings us to another peculiar feature of NYC Care: it's not health insurance, but rather, the promise of free health care.
While one of the mayor's goals is to "Boost enrollment in MetroPlus," the city's affordable public option, the main objective is to "Connect hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are ineligible for health insurance ... to reliable care." It's important to take de Blasio at face value on this one: he's going way beyond the city's preexisting safety net and guaranteeing free health services to the city's uninsured.
As with most single-payer plans, NYC Care is about politics as much as it is about health care.
Announcing NYC Care may help de Blasio score some political points, but the odds of it succeeding are low.
https://www.city-journal.org/de-blasio-universal-healthcare-new-yorkers
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