Gov. Hochul, advocates say as many as 1.5M NYers will wind up uninsured

New projections show a slight decrease in the number of people losing health insurance as a result of President Donald Trump's budget bill, but Gov. Kathy Hochul and Long Island advocates remain fearful the law would have devastating consequences for New Yorkers.

The Congressional Budget Office's updated analysis said that by 2034, the law would add $3.4 trillion to federal deficits and leave 10 million people without health insurance — a drop from the previous projection of 11.8, The Associated Press reported Monday. The projections for the uninsured were not broken down state-by-state. 

A spokeswoman for Hochul on Tuesday said nothing has changed for New York. The federal budget bill Trump signed into law on July 4 will still have devastating effects on New Yorkers because of federal funding cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, and new eligibility requirements, said spokeswoman Nicolette Simmonds in an emailed statement to Newsday. 

"The New York Republican delegation was determined to push this bill through, eliminating health care for 1.5 million New Yorkers and stripping food security access to millions of seniors and children," Simmonds said. "They don't care about their constituents, we heard them loud and clear. The Governor has said several times, this bill contains unprecedented cost-shifts that no one state can backfill. Our team will continue to assess the impacts and do what we can to protect New Yorkers."

Long Island's two Republicans in the House, Rep. Nick LaLota of Amityville and Rep. Andrew Garbarino of Bayport, voted for the bill. The Island's two Democratic House members voted against it.

"These targeted reforms are designed to protect benefits for those who truly need them while eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse that threaten the program long term," Garbarino said in a statement released a day before Trump signed the bill.

“At the same time," he added, "I remain concerned about the potential impact on New York State’s Essential Plan, but I am actively pursuing a fix that would ensure our state is not harmed by these provisions in the coming year. Continued access to affordable quality health care is a top priority."

Late Tuesday, when asked for comment, a spokesperson for Garbarino referred to his July 3 statement.

In a statement, also on July 3 and in support of the fiscal bill, LaLota said that "after 25 years without a balanced budget — and a debt-to-GDP ratio at its worst since WWII — both parties must work together to compassionately cut spending."

A spokesperson for LaLota did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.

The AP reported that the CBO's updated analysis reflects changes to the bill as Republicans in Congress negotiated its passage in the final days. The law extended current tax rates for individuals that were set to expire at the end of the year and also cut future spending on Medicaid and food assistance, among other things, the AP reported.

Newsday has previously reported health care advocates said hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers could have no access to health insurance because of changes to Medicaid eligibility and to Affordable Care Act enrollment requirements.

New York could lose $120 billion in federal Medicaid funding over the next decade, since it had expanded Medicaid access under the Affordable Care Act and is now expected to bear an increased share of Medicaid costs as a result of the new law, Newsday has reported, citing an analysis by KFF, a nonprofit focused on health care policy.

The latest state health data shows there are 367,087 Medicaid enrollees in Suffolk County and 308,354 in Nassau County, Newsday has reported.

"We’re concerned about Long Islanders losing access to Medicaid insurance, particularly with the new ... work requirement, " Vanessa Baird-Streeter, president and CEO of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, said Tuesday.

The Huntington Station-based council serves an umbrella advocacy agency for some 200 nonprofit human service agencies Islandwide.

"As we know it now, " Baird-Streeter added, "the requirements are 80 hours [of work] per month or actively seeking employment, or enrolled in school, or 20 hours a month in volunteer time."

She cited ongoing concerns about whether states will have a system in place to verify to the federal government they are meeting the work requirement.

"It's a complex reporting system," Baird-Streeter said. "If you need to verify that information on a monthly basis, the states are going to have to build and maintain the infrastructure to do so, and do it at their own expense."

Newsday's Nicholas Grasso contributed to this story.

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie