Governor Kathy Hochul has vetoed a bill that would have compelled New York State hospitals and the Department of Health (DOH) to assemble and maintain a public-facing list of policy-based service exclusions.
Currently, prospective patients of any of the 261 hospitals listed as active by the Department of Health in New York State don’t know prior to admission whether the care they seek will be provided there.
The governor said she vetoed the Hospital Transparency Act, a bill sponsored by state senator Michele Hinchey, because no implementation funds had been provided by the legislature, nor accounted for in the state’s financial plan. The governor’s office estimated that nearly a million dollars would be needed to cover the cost of the law’s implementation in the first year, with high annual recurring costs.
The bill had stipulated that each general hospital publish a list of its policy-based exclusions in standardized language on the DOH website.
Hochul noted the bill had required health insurers to supply a written explanation of their policy-based exclusions, “and the fact that some general hospitals may have policy-based exclusions, as well as a link to the DOH website.”
A press release by Hinchey’s office noted that more than 40 community hospitals in New York have closed since 2003, with the result that large healthcare systems now control more than 70 percent of acute hospital beds. In the process of consolidation, categories of care, including some types of emergency care, were sometimes removed from local hospitals
Most troubling may be the policy-based exclusions regarding reproductive care.
“New York has stood as a beacon for reproductive rights and comprehensive care,” explained Hinchey, “at a time when healthcare is under attack and vanishing nationwide. The Hospital Transparency Act was a chance to expose these growing healthcare deserts, bringing much-needed transparency to decisions that jeopardize care and showing where access needs to be expanded.”
Since its first introduction in 2021, the bill has passed the State Senate handily in each new session. The Assembly version was until recently bogged down in its health committee.
Finding a million dollars in the $229-billion 2024 New York State budget should be like looking for quarters in a couch. A City of Kingston grants management report from 2024 showed millions of dollars in line items secured by Hinchey, including six million for bulkhead Improvements on the Rondout Creek, two million for an Uptown Kingston levee project — as well as grants like the $550,000 for a new fire rescue Munson boat. Governor Hochul found $3.92 million to help renovate Ulster County’s pool, $3.34 million for upgrades to Kingston Point Beach, and a few days ago funded a skating rink in Hasbrouck Park with $167,460.
At .000004 percent of the state budget, a million dollars to bring the procedures offered by every hospital in the state into the light and to pinpoint every healthcare desert in the state should constitute a bargain.
With budget season here again, Hinchey intends to redouble her efforts.
“I’m grateful to assemblymember Nily Rozic, NYLCU, and Planned Parenthood for fighting with us as we push forward into the 2025 session to get this bill done. We will be working with the governor during the budget process to implement the Hospital Transparency Act and take this next step to protect healthcare access for all New Yorkers.”
Join the family! 
