Melanie D’Arrigo talks about the campaign dedicated to passing and implementing universal, single-payer health care in New York state. Supporters of the New York Health Act say that New Yorkers will pay less and get more by cutting out waste and using the negotiation power of 20 million New Yorkers. New Yorkers will save billions of dollars by not paying rising premiums, deductibles, co-pays, out-of-network charges and long-term care costs.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right now, I’m very happy to welcome to our program Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director with the Campaign for New York Health. There’s an effort underway that we’re going to be talking about with Melanie to pass legislation in New York state that would provide comprehensive universal single-payer healthcare to New York state residents. Melanie, thank you so much for making time to be on our program tonight.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yes, it’s my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me, Scott.
SCOTT HARRIS: So tell us about the coalition you lead that’s advocating for the state of New York to adopt a comprehensive universal healthcare system for all New Yorkers. And maybe first please outline the legislation you’re working to pass the New York Health Act, how it works, who would be covered, what would be covered. A lot of details there. I know we can’t get to all of them, but the broad headline of-
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Broad strokes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Melanie Durigo. I’m the executive director for the campaign for New York Health. We are the statewide coalition that is leading the fight to pass and implement the New York Health Act. Now, as you said, the New York Health Act is single-payer legislation, which is universal healthcare for every single New Yorker and full-time worker in the state.
So what does that mean? That means comprehensive upgraded care, including all medical, all dental, vision, hearing, all prescription drugs and long-term care. So it would be the most comprehensive benefits package of any other health plan in the country that would be delivered to New Yorkers. How would it be paid for? Well, there’s a graduated progressive tax. So based on ability to pay, you’d pay in. Numerous studies have been done showing that anywhere between 92 percent and 96 percent of New Yorkers would pay less than they do now.
Most New Yorkers would pay thousands of dollars less for a whole lot more. Under the New York Health Act, so as I said, you’d pay that progressive tax, but there would be no more copays, no more deductibles, no more surprise costs. Everything would be covered. So just like it is in other developed nations around the world, you get sick, you go to the doctor, you get your care, you go home and rest and recover.
So really it would put New York on par with the rest of the developed world that already has this type of healthcare system that actually centers healthcare over profit, which is of course what I think many of us would like to see in terms of changing the system. I’d also just like to briefly share, because I think this is really relevant and important: Last week we released a new white paper where a health economist looked at the fiscal impact of the New York Health Act on counties, municipalities and school districts.
And what they found is billions of dollars in additional savings. So counties would reduce healthcare spend by 90 to 95 percent. Municipalities and school districts would reduce healthcare spend by 80 to 85 percent. So you’re talking millions and millions of dollars at each level. New York City, you’re talking billions of dollars in savings. Imagine what that would do to lower property taxes, reinvest in your community. It’s a real lifeline. This bill’s a winner and we’re really excited and energized to finally pass this bill.
SCOTT HARRIS: I know that the Physicians for National Health Program, PNHP, we’ve had guests from that group on over many, many years and there’s a long struggle around the country and in New York state specifically. Do you think this is the year with a lot of concern about the cost of living—”affordability” as it’s called—and dissatisfaction with rising costs for health insurance on affordability, of course, in that. Do you think this is the year this could potentially pass?
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: So the New York State legislature is going to adjourn in just a few short weeks. So I think we’d certainly love for it to happen, but we’re really looking at building our campaign, which we launched last week to move throughout the year into January and we’re hoping that we can pass it next session. But I do think that window of opportunity is open. As you said, this bill has been around for a long time, which means it’s been pressure tested, right? It’s been improved upon. It’s a great piece of legislation, but as you know, it’s hard to convince people that change is good, right? People fear change for some reason. But what I think people should fear is these rising healthcare cost that is forcing more New Yorkers into medical debt, that is forcing more New Yorkers off insurance. And now coupled with these federal healthcare cuts, many hospitals around the state are poised to close.
We are in a five-alarm fire right now and we have no choice but to change. And so if we have this opportunity to change, we might as well go in a direction that saves everyone money and covers everyone.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you. Let me reintroduce you. We’re speaking on Counterpoint this evening with Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director with a campaign for New York Health. That’s part of a coalition that’s backing single payer universal healthcare proposed legislation in New York state. This is listener-sponsor WPKN in Bridgeport. My name’s Scott Harris and the program is Counterpoint. Melanie, I wondered if you’d talk briefly about the coalition of groups supporting passage of the New York Health Act.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yeah, absolutely. We’re really excited about our growing coalition. As you just mentioned, Physicians for a National Health Plan, they are one of our long-standing coalition partners, but truly the coalition is very broad. We have (501)C3, C4s, grassroots groups, faith-based groups, labor unions, you name it. The New York State Nurses Association many years ago and a handful of others, I think it was statewide senior action and citizen action went to Richard Godfrey, who was then the health chair and convinced him to write this bill and the rest they say is history. But all three of them are still very active in our group. But yeah, we have, as I said, C3, C4s, grassroots groups all around the state from every corner and we’re building. We also have regional hubs that work in very localized coalitions to anchor organizing. And I’ll tell you that since the reconciliation bill was passed in July, we have seen an outpouring of support.
I think folks are really energized and really wanting to fight back. And obviously the federal government is what it is, but I want New Yorkers to really realize that our best tool that we have to fight back and protect our healthcare is our state government. So everybody’s got to get active. You’ve got to start calling your representative. You’ve got to ask them to co-sponsor this bill. If they’re not co-sponsoring this bill, you’ve got to ask them why. If they are co-sponsoring this bill, you got to ask them what they’re doing to pass it because we need to put the pressure on. Real lives are at stake and we’ve got a real opportunity to really lead the nation in single-payer healthcare in delivering a healthcare system that prioritizes actual health. And I think that’s a really exciting prospect.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Melanie, I did want to ask you about the reaction or response from New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders in the state House and Senate.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yeah. So Gov. Hochul holds her cards close to the vest. I don’t think that’s a surprise. She hasn’t publicly weighed in on the bill yet. We are meeting with her team in about a week-and-a-half to talk to her about our new white paper that shows those tremendous savings at the local government and school district level. So I think that’s exciting. I think over the years there’s always a lot of turnover in the legislature, but I feel really optimistic based off of the white paper that was released last week. We haven’t seen this much engagement, this much response from legislators, certainly not in my tenure here with the campaign. So I think this is new information to be able to contextualize such savings at a local level that feels very personal to people. It seems that the legislators are actively listening and I do think, as I said, I think this is our opportunity, this is our movement to move the bill.
SCOTT HARRIS: Melanie, I did want to ask you about similar efforts in the United States in Vermont, California that didn’t really take off yet. They certainly may still and New York state may be the inspiration to get them over the line. But as you said earlier, the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have some kind of comprehensive national universal healthcare plan. The United States stands out. And that’s why our health system here, our health insurance system is one of the or the most expensive in the entire globe. And just to mention Canada as an example, one province, Saskatchewan, I believe, adopted a universal healthcare system in that population, which isn’t all that large back in the—I’m not sure it was the ’60s or ’70s—but that was such a success. It was adopted by the federal government in Canada and today they do have a universal single-payer healthcare system that’s often denigrated by politicians in the United States that are on the payroll of the insurance companies very often.
But I did want to ask you about Vermont, California and why do you think New York has an edge here in really making this happen soon?
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yeah. So I think there are many states, even beyond Vermont and California and New York that are advocating and working toward a single-payer system. And I think we don’t have to look very far to understand why. Everyone feels the pain of this broken fragmented healthcare system. Everyone has a horrible healthcare story, right?This isn’t unusual.This is run of the mill, right? We all know how serious this is. I think California keeps getting closer and closer sometimes with these big changes, you know, bills that would completely change a system, that’s sort of par for the course, unfortunately, in America. Why I think New York is well positioned is because first of all, our bill is different, right? Not every single-payer bill across every state is the same. They all have various differences in terms of how the funding works, what’s covered, etc. etc. New York alone as a state has, I think, what is it?
It’s like somewhere like the 8th or 10th largest economy in the world. So we’re well positioned to fund this type of program. And secondly, I think New York has a history. We’ve got the Statue of Liberty, right? “Give us your tired, give us your poor.” Historically, we have led the way. We’ve led the way in terms of human rights and I think that a lot of individuals would agree, certainly folks in this movement would agree that healthcare is a right, should be a right. How dare we? Who do we think we are that we can tell others that they’re not allowed cancer medication, that they’re not allowed surgeries that are life-saving surgeries?That’s obscene thing that we’ve accepted as normal in this country and it doesn’t have to be that way. So I think that New York, as I said, can really lead the nation here.
We haven’t been afraid to do that in the past. And I think Gov. Hochul and our leaders in the legislature need to remember what New York is about. What does New York stand for? And I think with a little bit of courage and some political will, we’ll be able to deliver this transformative legislation for this country that as you said, I’m careful to say transformative because really we’re so far behind the rest of the world. It would put us on par with the rest of the world. This is not a radical idea. The only thing radical is that we deny people care because they can’t afford it, right? So yes, I absolutely believe that New York can lead the way and I think this is the time to lead the way.
SCOTT HARRIS: It’s such a sad commentary in our country when people have to put up a GoFundMe page to get the funds to treat their catastrophic disease of one kind or another. This is just appalling. And as you said, this is a tried and true system all over the world. And I guess that gets me to one of my final questions tonight, Melanie, and that is who are your opponents? I certainly imagined the insurance companies would not be happy about New York adopting a universal healthcare system. But there may be unlikely allies as well. There’s a lot of large companies, small companies, medium- defisized companies that are paying a lot of money to ensure their employees that would likely benefit from cost reductions there.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yeah, absolutely. So I think in terms of who are our opponents, yeah, this is not a bill that the insurance industry is going to like. And let us be clear, they’ve sold a tail for a very long time that they provide us healthcare. That is not what they do. That is not their business. Their business is making money, right? They’re in the business of making money for their shareholders. They do that extremely well. They are very good at it. And they’re so successful in fact that the more money they make for the shareholders, the more they extract from us. The more we can’t afford to go to the doctor. As I said, it’s an extremely broken system, but one that they’re the clear winners, right.
They’re definitely going to be our biggest opposition. But I think there are others as well. The pharmaceutical industry is probably not going to be particularly happy. I think that there are some groups of individuals that they really don’t understand just how broken our healthcare system is. Maybe they’ve got really good insurance and it’s been okay for them. There are some gold standard plans that certainly some public unions have and I think it’s hard for them to think about what it could look like. So I think we need to continue to do more education and bring those folks along. But yeah, in terms of folks who support it, I think you’re right, this is a huge winner for big business, a huge winner for small business. And what we learned last week is that it’s a huge, huge winner for local governments and school districts, many of whom right now are raising property taxes, laying off teachers, cutting services and it doesn’t have to be that way.
We can deliver really great comprehensive upgraded healthcare for everyone and lower costs and be a lifeline to local governments and school districts. So I think we’re really focused on diversifying and building the biggest, broadest, strongest coalition possible to really urge and make New York do the right thing, which is pass this legislation.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Melanie, our broadcast here at WPKN is heard all over the place through the Internet, but we do have a dedicated and large audience on Long Island, New York. And I want to certainly make sure that you leave our listeners there and elsewhere with some contact information. So if they wanted to learn more about this project, the New York Health Act and how they can get involved, please leave that information for them now if you would.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Yes, absolutely. And if I can, just do a quick pitch to my friends in Long Island. As I mentioned, this white paper that was released last week and I’m just going to give you some county numbers. Suffolk County alone would save $745 million annually. Nassau County would save $609 million annually, that’s not including the savings from municipalities or school districts. So friends in Long Island, this is definitely a piece of legislation you want to get involved in passing. If you’d like to join us, join our fight, you can do so at nyhcampaign.org. That’s nyhcampaign.org.
SCOTT HARRIS: All right, Melanie, some good news. There’s a lot of bad news out there and we cover it every week on our show, but I’m very happy that you joined us tonight to talk about some potentially over the horizon, really good news. Thank you.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful evening.
SCOTT HARRIS: You too.Thanks, Melanie. Thanks.
MELANIE D’ARRIGO: Bye.
SCOTT HARRIS: That’s Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director with a campaign for New York Health.
