November 1, 2007
A FIGHT HE CAN WIN
 |
When do we want it? NOW! |
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has been bogged-down and spinning his political wheels in recent months, hampered by the Troopergate scandal, a nationwide furor over his plan to allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver's licenses and questions about his political skills and viability.
Spitzer says universal health coverage is a top goal for his administration. He’s sent his health and insurance commissioners, their top aides, and outside advisers and experts around the state for eight hearings on universal health coverage—the latest ones were this Tuesday and Friday, (Housing Works testimony is here)— with a goal of a final plan for universal coverage by the end of May, 2008.
But many political observers and activists are now asking: Why wait for May? Why shouldn’t Spitzer get into a good fight now—a fight he might be able to win?
 |
Spitzer’s health gurus heard testimony Tuesday |
This week’s hearings included testimony from high-powered health care players including Assembly Health Committee Chair Dick Gottfried and the leaders of 1199 SEIU/Healthcare Workers East, Healthcare Association of New York State and the Greater New York Hospital Association, insurers like Aetna, the Health Plan Association and the NY Private Health Services Plan (PHSP) Coalition, as well as advocacy groups like the Children’s Defense Fund, Citizen Action, the New York Immigration Coalition and the Commission on the Public’s Health System.
These are the same groups that fought with and against Spitzer last winter in his initial effort to reform New York’s health care system towards a more patient-centered orientation and to expand coverage for the uninsured. While the governor got some tough political opposition in the effort, he was fighting for priorities on which the public backed him big-time: reforming government programs and expanding health care access.
Spitzer’s current time frame for universal coverage would push most big fights over until after next November’s elections. But the Governor has been counting on making those elections a referendum on his reform agenda, swinging a few State Senate seats from Republican to Democrat and taking the majority leader job in that house out of the hands of his archenemy Joe Bruno.
Without a change in the political dynamic, Spitzer won’t win universal coverage, before or after the elections. But if he takes a shot at a significant coverage expansion this year, any move by Bruno to block health care for uninsured working families becomes a good issue to fight over in those hard-fought swing Senate districts—and an issue on which a significant majority of public opinion would favor the governor, not Bruno.
Housing Works isn’t for or against Spitzer or Bruno: We’re for universal health care for all New Yorkers. But the prospects for progress on this important issue in Albany are getting worse, not better. Spitzer’s got to do something to change the game, and a right-now universal health care proposal could be his best shot at making it happen.