WEINER ANNOUNCES PLAN TO

REFORM MEDICAID AND EXPAND HEALTH COVERAGE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS

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FIRST FOUR YEARS:

DRAMATICALLY INCREASE NUMBER OF NEW YORKERS WITH COVERAGE

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NEW TECHNOLOGY TO REIN IN MEDICAID COSTS,

INNOVATIONS TO MAKE INSURANCE MORE AFFORDABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

New York City – Pledging “aggressive leadership” and “a better approach” to health care in New York City, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens & Brooklyn) today unveiled a package of innovations and new ideas designed to dramatically expand the number of New Yorkers with health insurance coverage over the next four years.

Weiner unveiled his plan as part of a series of health care proposals designed to streamline Medicaid and lower costs, expand coverage for children and reduce prescription drug expenses for seniors, help small businesses afford health care for their employees, and put a new emphasis on preventative care.

Use School Lunch Program to Deliver Health Care to Uninsured Kids – Every child that qualifies for the school lunch program is also eligible for public health insurance. Under the Weiner plan, application for the lunch program during annual school enrollment would automatically trigger outreach designed to provide families with the various health coverage options available to their child.

Help Small Businesses Pool Purchase Health Care to Lower Costs – When small businesses join together to purchase health insurance for their employees, their purchasing power goes up and health insurance premiums go down. Weiner would expand programs like Brooklyn Health Works that allow small businesses to pool purchase and thereby provide more affordable health coverage to their employees.

Implement Electronic System to Enroll New Medicaid Recipients -- Currently, Medicaid applicants must wade through a paper based, redundant application process that requires information to be entered by hand, and then be sent for a range of bureaucratic approvals. Weiner would implement an electronic system to automatically save basic data, streamline approvals and eliminate redundancies.

Link Medicaid Recipients with Doctors in Their Neighborhoods – Emergency room visits drive up Medicaid costs and rarely provide patients with optimal care. Weiner would ensure that Medicaid recipients get more of their treatment from primary care providers by linking them with physicians in their neighborhoods, using North Carolina’s innovative Primary Care Case Management program as a model.

Expand Programs Providing Comprehensive Home Health Care Services for the Elderly – Weiner would emphasize preventative care for seniors, to keep health care costs low over the long term while giving frail elderly the chance to live happier, healthier lives outside of institutional settings. A linchpin to the Weiner plan: Program for All-Inclusive Care or PACE, which uses Medicaid dollars to provide comprehensive care—doctors, medicine, food, therapy, transportation—to seniors who otherwise would be placed in a nursing home.

Make it Easier for Seniors to Afford Prescription Drugs – The state subsidizes a drug card for seniors under the EPIC program that saves the average participant approximately $2,000 a year in drug costs. However, a substantial number of eligible New York City seniors don’t participate in the program. Under Weiner, the Department of Health would launch a much more aggressive outreach program to enroll the city’s eligible seniors. And Weiner would fight to expand the reach of EPIC to any New Yorker who does not have prescription drug coverage.

In December, Mayor Bloomberg said: “Medical care in this city is arguably one of the few services you can point to anyplace in the world where the poor get better services than the wealthy.” [New York Post, 1/1/05]

Rep. Weiner has a fundamentally different view.

“Right now, the condition of New York City’s health system is enough to make you sick,” said Rep. Weiner. “More of the same is not a solution. Neither is saying the poor have it good—as our Mayor does. I said my campaign would be a fight for the middle class and people struggling to make it. Health care is the first battlefield.”

Weiner delivered the speech at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, in Manhattan. It was his seventh speech detailing his vision for New York City. Previously he has addressed hunger in the City, outlined his five borough economic development plan, detailed his educational priorities, proposed a series of good government reforms, called for an end to backroom deals and pay to play at City Hall and rolled out his plan to cut taxes on middle class New Yorkers.

You can read all of Weiner’s previous speeches here: www.anthonyweiner.com/speeches.