Senator-elect Metzger discusses healthcare, agenda

FRITZ MAYER
Posted 12/5/18

MONTICELLO, NY — Jen Metzger, who won the election for the seat Sen. John Bonacic is vacating at the end of the year, addressed a meeting of the Sullivan County Senior Legislative Action …

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Senator-elect Metzger discusses healthcare, agenda

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MONTICELLO, NY — Jen Metzger, who won the election for the seat Sen. John Bonacic is vacating at the end of the year, addressed a meeting of the Sullivan County Senior Legislative Action Committee (SLAC) on November 30, and laid out some of her priorities for the coming session.

She said she has requested to serve on various committees, although there is no guarantee that leadership will grant her requests. One of those requests is that she be named chair of the Agricultural Committee. She said the 42nd District will be the most rural district in the state with a democratic senator. The district is comprised of all of Sullivan County and parts of Ulster, Orange and Delaware counties, where agriculture is an important sector.

Metzger is also seeking a seat on the education committee. “Education has been a big issue in my platform, because I believe that it is the way for all of us, for all of our children, to realize their full potential,” she said. “It’s good for our economy, it’s good for our society, and the way we fund education in New York is broken.” Metzger advocates relying less on property taxes to pay for school, and more on progressive income taxes.

Metzger is also hoping to serve on the energy and telecommunications committee, since she has been working on clean energy issues since her college days. She is a co-founder of Citizens for Local Power, a nonprofit that helps communities make the shift to clean energy.

Metzger would also like to serve on the elections committee. “Peoples’ faith in political institutions is at an all time low,” she said. “It’s a pay-to-play system, and corporate donors have a much bigger voice in [determining] the way things are done. That prevents us from moving forward in meeting [fully] on all these other issues that are important to all of us.”

The issue that sparked the most discussion between Metzger and audience members was healthcare, specifically the New York Health Act (NYHA), which would create a single-payer plan for all New York State residents.

Metzger said she supports NYHA but, “it’s not going to be easy. It’s big, it’s transformational, and we haven’t really done something so large in New York state.” She added that although NYHA has been passed by the assembly several times already, many of the details still need to be worked out. A study by the Rand Corporation determined that moving away from private insurance to NYHA could save the state $80 billion in healthcare costs over a 10-year period. The sponsors of the legislation are updating it.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he supports the concept of a single-payer system, but he believes it should not be done at the state level by New York alone, and rather should be handled at the federal level. Metzger was asked if she thought the governor could be persuaded to change his mind.

“This is a huge thing, we can’t underestimate that political reality,” she responded. “It’s going to be important for organizations and groups that have supported [NYHA] to stay engaged on this issue. I was impressed in the campaign process by how many people were supportive of it. Just in general, there was such a high level of engagement in this election, it was really extraordinary, that’s how our democracy should be. But it doesn’t stop at elections. It’s so important for people to stay engaged and not just assume that everyone in Albany is going about doing what they were elected to do. You need to be engaged. You need to be talking with your representatives.”

Specifically regarding Cuomo’s position, she said it’s a hard question to answer. She added that she had not yet met all of her colleagues, and did not yet have a sense of the view on the matter of the Senate and assembly overall.

New York Statewide Senior Action Council

Another speaker at the SLAC meeting also ventured into discussion about NYHA.  Gail Myers, deputy director of the New York Statewide Senior Action Council, said that NYHA will not be one of the first topics the legislature takes on when it takes up the spending bill in the new year. In order to make NYHA work, the state would need waivers from the federal government to allow Medicare and Medicaid funds currently flowing to the state to be diverted to the new system.

Myers noted that Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has said the agency would not grant states waivers for state single-payer systems. Myers said that the new Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins has said the Senate will “take another look” at the legislation 

She added that groups that have traditionally backed NYHA are now starting to raise questions about its effectiveness. Labor unions, for instance, are now raising concerns because “health coverage in union negotiations has been a major stumbling block,” and it’s not clear how those negotiations would be impacted under NYHA.

Myers, said, however, that these new questions are a good sign for NYHA supporters. “When you start to see opposition ramping up, and when you start to hear people who have been long-time supporters raising questions, it means it’s getting closer to being real.”

healthcare, Monticello

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