by Robert Lynch, May 18, 2021
Nobody was quite sure. Maybe it was the fourth time they’d taken this vote over the past 15 years; perhaps the sixth. But on the eve of an important State Senate committee decision, the Tompkins County Legislature Tuesday (May 18th), by a lopsided, party-driven margin, urged New York to enact single payer health care for all state residents.
“After nearly more than a year of this global pandemic, it is clear that universal guaranteed health care is not only sound public health policy, but a necessity for a just economic recovery that centers racial and economic justice,” said Enfield’s Joanna Green, speaking before Tuesday’s vote on behalf of the Eastern Southern Tier Poor People’s Campaign.
The County Legislature’s vote reflected the partisan wedge that the single payer cause—better known currently as the New York Health Act—has driven into State politics. All the County Legislature’s Democrats supported Tuesday’s measure. Two of the body’s three Republicans, including Enfield’s David McKenna, opposed it.
Earlier in the day, Green had sought to rally Enfield Democrats to speak at the Legislature’s evening meeting and also to lure McKenna to her side. Not only did she fail to win McKenna’s support; she only drew one ally to the Legislature’s virtual session, namely Newfield legislative candidate Vanessa Greenlee.
As it adopted the largely-symbolic endorsement of New York single payer, local legislators also beat back Lansing Republican Mike Sigler’s substitute Resolution, one that, rather establish single payer, would have urged the State to fund all cancer treatment for every afflicted patient.
In advancing his alternative, Sigler noted that New York legislators have had zero success in their many years of pushing single payer statewide and that states including Vermont and California have failed to implement their own single payer measures because of the high cost. As compared with single payer, Sigler described his alternative as “half a loaf.”
Sigler’s colleagues, including Dryden’s Mike Lane, admitted that cancer is a scourge that deserves State attention, but so too, they said, do other diseases.
Lansing Democrat Deborah Dawson commended Sigler’s measure as a “very thoughtful and useful approach,” but quickly added, “Cancer is a scourge, but so is the health insurance business model.”
Despite their partisan endorsement, not all of the Legislature’s Democrats accorded the New York Health Act unqualified support. Ithaca Democrat Rich John stood most critical.
John said his endorsement came with “reservations.” John feared that extra health care costs might cripple small business, including non-profit agencies. He said the plan could impact New York companies competing with those across close state lines. And then there’s the way State Government mismanages so much of what it touches.
“If you look at the operation of New York State, they seem to struggle with the most basic ministerial actions,” observed John. “They cannot do these things in an efficient, clear, simple way for the people who live in New York State…. And entrusting them to pick up the ball and build something as necessary and elaborate as this and to do it in cost effective way… I worry.”
Tuesday’s long-winded, cover-every-base, 21-paragraph County Resolution now gets forwarded to lawmakers in Albany, where the single payer bill had been prepped for an upper house Health Committee vote, yet was purportedly pulled by the Senate’s majority leader at the last minute. Local supporters have argued that with Democratic super-majorities in both the Senate and Assembly, party-line votes could drive the measure to adoption, despite a possible gubernatorial veto.
Enfield advocate Green suggested that single payer’s adoption in New York, could “lead the way” toward establishing the practice nationally.
Legislator John, meanwhile encouraged a more measured approach, alluding to Washington’s adoption of a nationwide public option tied to the Affordable Care Act. “I would far prefer if our national Congress could actually get its act together,” he said. “It would be far preferable if we could do this as a country.”
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