As of Wednesday, July 1, approximately 450,000 New Yorkers no longer have the subsidized health coverage they had the day before. Changes to New York’s Essential Plan under the federal HR1 spending bill (President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”) officially took effect, ending low- to no-cost health insurance for hundreds of thousands of low-income residents, according to City & State.
The Essential Plan is a state-run, federally subsidized insurance program that provides low- or zero-premium coverage to New Yorkers who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford marketplace plans. New York managed to avoid a worse outcome: without a state waiver to return to a Basic Health Program structure (which unlocked billions in a federal trust fund) more than 1 million enrollees would have lost coverage, according to City & State. But that waiver came with a trade-off. The 450,000 people who gained coverage under an expansion of the Essential Plan two years ago, those earning between 200% and 250% of the federal poverty line, lost their insurance Wednesday.
The cuts disproportionately affect low-income residents and immigrant communities, City & State reports. New York is required by law to provide health insurance to certain immigrant populations, and those enrollees were prioritized under the waiver that preserved the broader program.
Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is running on a promise to cut Medicaid further. This week, Blakeman told Fox Business that he would “cut Medicaid in half” to bring it back to a “reasonable number,” according to City & State. HR1 will also bring significant changes to Medicaid eligibility starting next year.
Congressional Democrats hit back at both Trump and Blakeman. Rep. Grace Meng of Queens, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, called HR1 “horrendous” for its cuts to both Medicaid and the Essential Plan. “That Bruce Blakeman wants to increase the suffering is cruel and should disqualify him from any high office,” Meng said in a statement to City & State. “His policies would also do major damage to our fragile economy, raising costs across the board and taking away lifesaving care from the people who need it most.”
Rep. George Latimer of Westchester told City & State that he had warned HR1 would be a “disaster for New Yorkers’ healthcare.” “With so many New Yorkers set to lose care, it is unconscionable that Bruce Blakeman is running for Governor on a promise to cut Medicaid even further by half and strip New Yorkers of the care they need to survive,” Latimer said.
Blakeman, in a statement to City & State, defended his position by pointing to New York’s Medicaid spending, which outpaces every other state in the nation. “I’m running for Governor to protect patients and taxpayers by eliminating the fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid that costs billions of dollars every year and drives up the cost of living in New York,” he said. “By fixing Hochul’s broken system, we will actually safeguard health coverage for the most vulnerable.”
State lawmakers had the option to pass a state-level fix for the 450,000 losing coverage, but left Albany this legislative session without one, according to City & State. The price tag for such a solution varied widely among estimates, and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins blamed the governor for the failure to act.
The Essential Plan cuts arrive alongside separate federal pressure on New York’s Medicaid program. The federal government launched a probe into the program earlier this year and, this week, said it would suspend funding for the program’s fraud unit over poor performance, City & State reports. State Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri also testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations as part of Congress’ broader investigation into blue-state Medicaid programs.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
