The Remarks Of Speaker Sheldon Silver

Healthcare Association Of New York State 2008 Leadership Advocacy Day

ESP, Convention Center, Albany, NY
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Let me begin by thanking my colleagues, Chair of the Assembly's Committee on Health, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and Commissioner Daines, for warming up the crowd for me.

As I do each year on HANYS Advocacy Day, I bring you both the greetings of the Assembly Majority as well as our gratitude, because we know that there are tens of thousands of New Yorkers - patients in our hospitals, residents of our nursing homes - as well as thousands of health-care workers whose concerns would have no voice on this day, were it not for HANYS.

I said this at last year's HANYS Advocacy Day and I'm going to say it again, even if it makes my friend, Dan Sisto uncomfortable.

In my more than three decades here in Albany, I have worked with countless leaders and advocates from virtually every segment of the public-interest spectrum and I can tell you that there is no finer leader, no wiser or more effective leader than the President of HANYS, Dan Sisto.

Dan - and his HANYS team - are an invaluable resource to our government and to the citizens of this state, and I hope that you appreciate him as much as we do in the Legislature.

As Dan will attest, the Assembly Majority - with the leadership of Chairman Gottfried - has carried the HANYS banner and advanced intelligent health-care reform and patient-centered health policy for years.

Now, we have a leader in the Executive Branch who is passionate about the challenge of reforming and enhancing New York State's vast and ever-evolving health-care system.

Once we elect a New Yorker to the White House this November, I am confident that we will finally receive the federal dollars our health-care system has been shortchanged for so long.

Last year, I and my Assembly Majority colleagues began working with Governor Spitzer to shape his budget priorities well before he was sworn in as "chief executive of the state."

I am sure you agree that last year's budget process was considerably better than that of the previous twelve years.

Working with you, with the Governor and with our colleagues in the Senate, we addressed a number of the concerns you brought to our attention in 2007.

We rejected the Governor's proposal to extend the .35-percent hospital assessment.

We restored 75-percent of the trend factor.

We succeeded in gaining a partial restoration of Graduate Medical Education funding.

We made significant strides toward simplifying the enrollment process for the Medicaid, Family Health Plus and Child Health Plus programs to attract more New Yorkers into these critical programs.

As the legislative budget process winds it way to April 1st, I think it is important to step back for a moment and look at the bigger picture.

All of us here in this room were abiding by a "patients-first" agenda long before Governor Spitzer uttered the phrase.

Each and every one of us has been striving to ensure that every child has the health care that they need, and to ensure that every senior citizen has access to quality health care wherever they reside.

We have long supported investing in primary and preventive care.

We have advanced public health initiatives to address chronic diseases.

We have fought - and are still fighting - to make sure that every payer contributes their fair share to the cost of our health care system.

For the most part, all of us - the Governor, the Legislature, the health care industry - are on the same page when it comes to the well-being of New Yorkers.

We agree that costs must be controlled.

We agree - as the Governor likes to say - that we must pay for the right care in the right setting at the right price.

As we move together to streamline and to strengthen our health-care system, we must not lose sight of the fact that health care is first and foremost about human beings.

It is easy to get caught up in the labyrinth of costs, but I doubt that any of us is willing to allow a few people to suffer and go without in order to more rapidly reform the system.

Much of what Governor Spitzer is advancing is sound health-care policy, and I applaud his effort, but with the economy in decline, we must reconsider the pace of reform and adjust our steps accordingly.

The State Department of Health released its budget runs just last week. We need time to "wrap our heads" around the data and the methodology behind those numbers.

More important, HANYS and its members must have the opportunity to improve upon the Governor's plan.

To that end, we must work together to convince the Governor to delay for six months, the hospital reimbursement reforms scheduled to go into effect on July 1st of this year.

As we pursue reform through the lens of "patient-first," it is essential that this state acknowledge the full importance of our health-care facilities:

• As job-creating, economic engines;

• As educators of the health-care professionals of the future;

• As incubators of medical technology;

• And as magnets that attract residents and businesses to communities throughout this state.

This is a case we must make day in and day out.

As we navigate the rough seas ahead of us, keep in mind that I and my Assembly Majority colleagues are always in your corner.

Dan will tell you, my door and the doors of my colleagues are always open to HANYS and to each and every one of you, its members.

We definitely have our work cut out for us in this legislative session, but if we work together, we can make the necessary reforms and improve the health care system New Yorkers depend upon twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Thank you for listening. Enjoy your advocacy day here in Albany. Speaking for all New Yorkers, thank you for all that you contribute to the quality of life in our state.