De Blasio Releases Details of Turnaround Plan For NYC Health & Hospitals
According to a Crain’s New York Business report on the release of the de Blasio administration’s “turnaround plan” for the NYC Health & Hospitals’ “raises a simple question, but one that won’t be clear for several years: Will it work?”
In his budget, Mayor Bill de Blasio “filled operating deficit with an additional $160 million cash infusion on top of the $337 million the city had promised in January. But the city will have to do more if it hopes to plug a budget gap that is projected to total $1.8 billion in 2020.” The Crain’s article describes the plan as “vague.”
The New York Daily News mentioned in its editorial section that the “long-in-coming financial collapse of New York City’s public hospitals has finally become critical enough to force Mayor de Blasio to do . . . Something.” The article criticizes De Blasio’s lack of detail for the plan moving forward saying that he “was most specific about what he will not do.” It adds that restoring the financial viability of the “country’s largest public hospital system” will “surely be one of the most serious challenges de Blasio is called on to meet as mayor.”
Manatt Health, a division of the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, will begin work on the study, according to a de Blasio spokeswoman, looking to see if the Health & Hospitals Corporation, which serves primarily Medicaid patients, can benefit from state reforms and national trends even as looming federal cuts threaten to make matters worse.
De Blasio, during his budget presentation last month, promised to address the Health & Hospitals Corporation issue, which is facing a multi-billion dollar deficit.