We health care advocates have had some good successes so far this year in the State Legislature – most notably, inclusion of the “Ounce of Prevention Act” as part of the state budget adopted last month. It will update and improve New York’s requirements for hospitals to provide financial assistance to low and moderate income patients so that more people will qualify and avoid incurring hospital bills they simple cannot pay off. These reforms are long overdue, particularly since New York provides over $1 billion to hospitals across the state for their financial assistance programs (that are required under federal law.)

We salute the End Medical Debt campaign for its years-long dogged leadership in getting this bill over the finish line, and are proud to be a member of its leadership body. Kudos to the Health Care for All New York coalition and the Community Service Society of New York for anchoring this campaign.

We also salute our colleagues in Medicaid Matters New York and the consumer-directed personal assistance movement for fending off harmful proposals to limit access to paid-for long-term care provided by family members and loved ones.

And finally, we salute the Legislature for fending off proposed Medicaid cuts to hospitals, and instead raising rates overall (also long overdue), and creating special funds for safety net and financially-distressed hospitals.

With only 3 weeks left in this year’s state legislative session, here’s what’s coming up next :as priorities for us, with a particular focus on the State Assembly:

• Coverage for All (S.2237B / A.3020B, Rivera / Gonzalez-Rojas) — a bill to expand New York’s very successful Essential Plan to ALL low-income residents, including undocumented adults between ages 19-64. The good news is that this step can be fully funded by the federal government, thereby costing the state coffers nothing. In addition, it will save the state nearly $500 billion in Emergency Medicaid costs and paying for uncompensated care provided by hospitals.

• Stop SUNY Suing Act (S.7778 / A,8170, Rivera / Paulin) – a bill to prohibit New York State’s public hospitals operated by the State University of New York from suing patients for unpaid bills. These hospitals include Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, Stony Brook Medical Center in Suffolk County, and Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo. As public hospitals, these facilities are required to provide care to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. However, these facilities are far and away the biggest suers of patients with outstanding bills, most of whom are lower income. In addition, the state provides these hospitals with special funding for them to fulfill their special mission.

The Senate is very supportive of both these bills (and has just passed the Coverage for All bill!), so it is now up to the Assembly to make sure that they become law. With regard to the Coverage for All bill, lawmakers will need to stand up to the forces of anti-immigrant animus and do the right thing for ALL New Yorkers. The Stop SUNY Suing bill is simply a no-brainer that just needs to not fall to the wayside in the end-of-session crush of bills.

We urge everyone to contact your own Assemblymembers about these two bills, to urge that they call on Assembly leaders to “get them done!” before adjourning for this year in early June.

In addition, here are digital and social media toolkits for people to use to spread the word and take action online:

• Coverage for All toolkit
• End Medical Debt “Stop SUNY Suing” toolkit

Good news! We and our partners in the Save Beth Israel and New York Eye & Ear Campaign have prevailed in Round 1 of our combined efforts to save Beth Israel Medical enter and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary!  We’ve taken on the one of the big Goliath hospital networks in our city, and tamed them for now.

Beth Israel will not be closing any time soon, services are going to be restored, and our community now has a court-ordered seat at the table to determine its future. How this process goes will set the table for a similar discussion to come about NY Eye & Ear.

Join us at noon this coming Saturday April 13 for a street march to kick-off Round 2 of this campaign. We’ll be celebrating our Round 1 success, and telling Mount Sinai that “It’s Time to Find a Way!” to provide hospital services in Lower Manhattan, instead of closing down facilities to sell them off as real estate, and thereby turning our community into another hospital desert in our city.

Here’s our march plan (Sat. Apr. 13):

• 12 noon – Kick-off Mini-Rally in Abe Lebewohl Park at 2nd Ave. & 10th St., in front of St. Mark’s in the Bowery Church
• 12:30 p.m. – March to New York Eye and Ear Infirmary at 2nd Ave. & 14th St. for a Solidarity Rally
• 1:00 p.m. – March to Beth Israel Hospital at 1st Ave & 16th St. for a patient and hospital worker speak-out

Here are march information materials to use and share with others:

• Online event page and RSVP form – please fill out this form so that we keep in touch if things might change.
• Facebook event page to share with others.
• PDF flyer to send by email or print out to distribute.

As a reminder, Beth Israel is the last remaining community hospital for much of Lower Manhattan, from Canal St. up to 23rd St. from River to River, including the neighborhoods of;

• Hudson Square, Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side
• West Village, Central Village, East Village, and Alphabet City
• Chelsea, Union Square, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Square, and Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village

We look forward to everyone joining with us this coming Saturday afternoon to celebrate our accomplishments, and build unity for what comes next in Round 2: determining the future of both these important Lower Manhattan hospitals.

Background on how our Round 1 success happened:

Mount Sinai Health System submitted a closure plan for Beth Israel Medical Center to the New York State Department of Health in late October, and expanded it in mid-November. In late November, Beth Israel held a required community meeting to explain their plan to an overflow crowd of community residents, hospital workers, and local public officials, all of whom vigorously objected to it.

Under significant community pressure, in mid-December the Department issued Mount Sinai a cease-and-desist order to stop all unit closures at Beth Israel Hospital until the Department had made a decision on Mount Sinai’s closure plan. This order was completely ignored by Mount Sinai. In January, the Department sent staff into Beth Israel to monitor and document what had been and was happening on site.  

In March, the Department issued a scathing report about all the ways Mount Sinai had been a) placing patients at risk by illegally closing down units at Beth Israel, and b) had been illegally turning away ambulances and transferring emergency room patients to other hospitals rather than treating them on site.  

Early last week, the Department returned Mount Sinai Health System’s closure plan for Beth Israel as “incomplete”. They also directed Mount Sinai what to include in any future revised closure plan, and these new items will take several weeks (if not months) to compile and provide. The Department also told them that if and when a closure plan is approved, nothing can be closed down until at least 90 days after that date.

Alongside this regulatory oversight, in early February several community groups and Beth Israel patients and workers filed a joint lawsuit in New York County Court against a) Mount Sinai to stop illegally closing down units at the hospital, and b) the Department of Health for insufficient oversight and enforcement. Soon thereafter, the Court granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the ongoing closure of units, and last month this TRO was expanded in scope. These court orders were also ignored by Mount Sinai. Last week, the Court ordered Mount Sinai to restore all services it has illegally closed down since late last year, and to negotiate a plan for that with the Dept. of Health and local elected officials & community leaders.

In addition, the Lower Manhattan community has organized and taken action together through our campaign. We have:

• Turned people out for public meetings and town halls with public officials and Mount Sinai executives.
• Held press conferences and rallies outside Beth Israel
• Collected over 2,000 signatures (so far) for our online petition to Gov. Hochul and the Dept. of Health that calls on them to preserve hospital care in Lower Manhattan.
• Recruited scores of people to send personalized emails to Gov. Hochul and Health Commissioner McDonald to share their own personal stories and perspectives.
• Conducted a survey and published a report of nearly 1,000 community residents who have used and rely on Beth Israel Hospital about their experiences as a patient.
• Built a cadre of Lower Manhattan elected officials from all levels of government who meet together regularly, and have continually engaged with Mount Sinai officials, Gov. Hochul’s office, and state and federal hospital regulators.
• Brought together a collaboration of Lower Manhattan Community Boards to represent community needs and concerns, and provide information back to community members.
• Formed a campaign leadership team of local health care advocates, political activists, and community-based organizations and non-profits.

What people can do to support and get involved:

• Show up for our Community Victory March this Sat. April 13th starting at 12 noon (see details above — be sure to RSVP here!)
• Sign this online petition to get on our mailing list.
• Fill out this online survey if you rely on or have gotten care at Beth Israel Hospital.

Another good development:

In response to local community-led opposition campaigns that have formed in response to proposed closures of Beth Israel Hospital in Lower Manhattan, University Hospital at SUNY Downstate in Central Brooklyn, the Burdett Birth Center at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, as well as a sudden severe financial crisis at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, state legislators have come forward with two important bills to improve how hospital closures are considered and managed by state officials:

• Local Improvement in Community Hospitals Act (S.8843/A.1633-A, Rivera/Simon) This bill overwhelmingly passed the Assembly last week, and now awaits action in the Senate.
• 2024 Hospital Closure Moratorium Act (S.8907/A.9819, Gonzalez/Wallace) This bill is being expanded to be broader in scope, and a companion Assembly bill is being introduced soon.

Last month, one of the campaign’s partners, the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel, released a report summarizing a health equity impact assessment it conducted during late December and early January. Over 900 community residents from Lower Manhattan participated! No surprise, but Beth Israel Medical Center’s emergency dept. and related ICU is the major service that many people who live and work in Lower Manhattan use and rely upon. They are most worried about losing it should the hospital close. News reports indicate that the nearest ERs at Bellevue Hospital and NYU Medical Center are already overwhelmed and have long waiting times.

In early Feb., several organizations, hospital workers, and patients filed a joint lawsuit in NY State Supreme Court against Mount Sinai Health Systems (Beth Israel’s operator) and the New York State Dept. of Health, to stop Beth Israel’s closure, and a few days later the court granted a Temporary Restraining Order. You can read a news story all about it here:

Here’s our general information leaflet with action steps everyone can take.

Here’s a special online forum to learn more about the crisis situations at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and SUNY Downstate’s University Hospital. A recording and slide decks will be available online afterwards.

Since last fall, we have been busy with building and coordinating a campaign to save hospital care in Lower Manhattan (Beth Israel Medical Center, and New York Eye and Ear Institute, both operated by Mount Sinai Health System.)

The new “Save Beth Israel and New York Eye & Ear Campaign” is bringing community leaders, activists, and residents of Lower Manhattan together with local elected officials, community boards, and hospital workers, and is having significant impact. We are leveraging this campaign to push New York leaders to strengthen the state’s oversight of hospitals overall with an eye toward prioritizing local community needs.

Since the beginning of this year, similar hospital care crises have emerged in Central Brooklyn (the planned closure of SUNY Downstate University Hospital), and in Upper Manhattan (the planned elimination of midwifery care at New York-Presbyterian’s Allen Hospital in Inwood.)

Our main takeaways from all these situations are that New York officials must focus on the needs of local communities rather than just catering to the market-driven business plans of large hospital networks. It’s clear that New York desperately needs to restore regional health planning that prioritizes and supports hospitals’ commitment to local community service areas, particularly in medically-needy communities.

With all that in mind, Mayor Adams is holding a community town hall on Mon. Feb. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Murry Hill Academy, 111 East 33rd St. (just east of Park Ave.) Our new campaign will be there to manifest a community presence at this event to call on the Mayor to do all he can to save Beth Israel and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and more generally, hospital care citywide.

Activists be gathering outside starting at 5:30 p.m. to meet-and-greet attendees as they arrive, provide them a leaflet about the crisis of hospital care in our city, and have a visual presence with signs and banners. Once the Mayor’s event starts, people will be going inside to participate and raise up our concerns about access to hospital care in local communities across our city.  An RSVP is required by using this email address for the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit:  rsvpcau@cityhall.nyc.gov — also be sure to bring along a photo ID.

For the last month, we’ve been very busy over the last few weeks trying to prevent Mount Sinai Health System from closing down Beth Israel Hospital. We’re building an ever-growing coalition of Lower Manhattan residents, community activists and leaders, local public officials, and hospital workers. We’re all joining forces to try to preserve the last remaining community hospital for much of this part of our city so that the area doesn’t become another hospital desert.

We’re hitting the streets this coming Thursday morning, December 14 for a Community Rally that is being hosted by NYC Councilmember Carlina Rivera and many of her local colleagues from the City Council, State Legislature, and Congress. We’re all gathering at 11 a.m. on the corner of 1^st Ave. and East 17^th St. outside Beth Israel Hospital.

Please join us then to send a loud-and-clear message to Mount Sinai officials and State and City leaders to “Save Our Community Hospital!” Beth Israel has a long history as the safety net hospital for one of our city’s most diverse areas that has welcomed waves of immigrants over many decades, and has served a significant working class and low-income population.

If you can’t make this rally (or even if you can), you can support it by using this social media toolkit before, during, and after it.

Here are publicity materials about this rally to share around:

• Online event page
• PDF flyer — English, Spanish
• Facebook event

If you can’t make this rally (or even if you can), you can support and amplify it by using this social media toolkit before, during, and after it.

Individuals and groups and businesses can also join in this campaign by filling out these sign-up forms.

Why we are in this fight:

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become abundantly clear that our hospital care system in New York is WAY out of balance. Hospital beds are being increasingly concentrated in more affluent, more racially homogenous, medically well served neighborhoods where well-insured people live, while hospitals are closing and hospital deserts are being created in areas where lower-income, racially diverse, medically-underserved, and uninsured people live and work. This dynamic is morally wrong, and doesn’t benefit everyday New Yorkers, nor our shared public health.

This current crisis at Beth Israel is just the latest example of “what’s wrong with this picture.” The good news is that similar community-led fights about local community hospitals are happening across our state in Central Brooklyn, Mount Vernon, Schenectady, and Troy. People are coming together and fighting back. We are proud to be helping to lead the statewide Community Voices for Health System Accountability project that brings health advocates together with local community activists to collaborate and support each other.

It’s time for our state and city leaders to act to restore regional health planning that was eliminated nearly three decades ago, and to adequately support community hospitals with the resources they need to meet their mission, rather than continue to rely on the “magic of the market” to sort it all out. It’s clear that approach doesn’t work, and it merely benefits the already well-off at the expense of those who have much less and are struggling to get by day-to-day, week-to-week.

Government regulators also must strengthen their ongoing oversight of the hospital industry and enforce existing laws and regulations to assure that the rules aren’t bent and evaded, so that all New Yorkers have access to hospital care in our communities. Large hospital networks must be held accountable for ALL the communities they are supposed to serve, and not just protect and grow their central hub facilities.

There’s an old saying that “all health care is local”, and we as a city and state must refocus on that goal. By fighting to preserve Beth Israel Hospital, we are advancing the larger goal of health care access for and within all communities across our city and state.

They’re at it again! Once more trying to slash our bedrock social programs Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – this time via “special commission” that the White House aptly characterizes as a “death panel” for these programs.

It’s time for everyone to speak out against this idea!

Here is an organizational sign-on letter for your group to endorse, from our national partners at Social Security Works. The deadline is next Tues. Nov. 7^th, so please act on this request quickly!

Getting a good number of NY groups listed on this letter will help send a strong message to our two key champions in Congress: Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (from NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (from Brooklyn.) We have a unique opportunity and obligation to our kindred spirits nationwide to engage both of them on this matter.

Background and Current State-of-Play:

In the last 117^th Congress (2021-22), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) introduced the “TRUST Act” that would have created a special commission to develop proposals to slash spending on and change the fundamentals of these programs. It would have operated behind closed doors outside of the regular congressional committee process, and then their ideas would have been fast tracked through Congress by allowing only minimal debate and no amendments with an up-or-down vote on an entire package.

The House Budget Committee is now trying to move a similar proposal forward, and the new House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled that he intends to try to attach it to various spending and budget bills that will be moving to the House floor in the coming weeks. They also have a new tax cut bill for corporations, and want to rescind new funding provided to the IRS to go after rich tax cheats, both of which would increase federal debt substantially.

Needless to say, we health care advocates fiercely oppose this special commission idea, for both process and policy reasons.

Fortunately, the public is very much on our side. Polling shows that people across the political spectrum strongly oppose this special commission idea. Instead, we everyday people much prefer that Congress IMPROVE & EXPAND these programs, and pay for them by requiring special interests, large corporations, and the ultra-rich to “pay what they owe” and “pay their fair share” of taxes.

If you’ve been following the news out of Washington DC over the past week, you know it’s been a complete fracas within the House of Representatives on the Republican side of the aisle. Here’s what went down, and how it relates to health care issues and bills.

Continuing Resolutions vs. Government Shutdown

Late last week, House Republicans serially put forward two “Continuing Resolution” (CR) proposals to keep the federal government temporarily funded, open, and operating. The larger backdrop for this situation is the failure of Congress to enact 12 appropriations bills that comprise the annual federal budget before the start of the new federal fiscal year on October 1^st. Theoretically, this year these bills are supposed to conform to a broad budget outline laid out in the Fiscal Reduction Act (FRA) that was enacted last spring to avert the federal government from defaulting on its debt.

The first CR (HR 5525) taken up Friday afternoon (Sept. 29) reflected the demands of many conservative Republicans, in violation of the FRA deal. It contained large spending cuts to “discretionary” social programs, spending increases for national defense and homeland security, creation of a special commission to cut spending for “mandatory programs” (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), and a host of non-budget “hot button” social issues (like restrictions on reproductive freedom for women and health care for transgender people.) Here’s a good summary of what was in this first CR and its predicted impacts.

This CR failed to pass the House because the spending cuts weren’t deep enough for a small number far-right Republicans, so they voted against it. The Democratic Minority opposed it because of the spending cuts, the special commission idea, and the social issue riders.  All NY Republicans voted for this CR, and all NY Democrats against.

A second CR (HR 5860) taken up Saturday afternoon (Sept. 30) reflected a bipartisan consensus that has been emerging over in the Senate. It was a “clean” CR that just kept the current FY 2023 federal budget in place with no spending cuts or special commission or extraneous social issue riders. There was also a bit of new special spending to help states and localities respond to recent natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc.) All Democrats (but one) joined with slightly more than one-half of the Republicans to pass this new CR, and it then was sent over and passed by the Senate and then signed by President Biden. All Reps. from New York (both Republicans and Democrats) voted for it.

Political sideshow: This result triggered a revolt among a small group of far-right Republicans in the House such that they undertook a successful effort to remove House Speaker McCarthy earlier this week. Now the House is unable to undertake any legislative business until a new Speaker is chosen. An interim speaker is in place to oversee that process, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

Appropriations Bills for a FY 2024 Federal Budget

Meanwhile, the process to adopt an annual budget for FY 2024 resumes as House committees continue their work to finalize their ideas for various appropriations bills – the Senate has completed the committee process on a bipartisan basis.  We health care advocates will be paying attention to the “Labor-HHS” appropriations bills that cover all things health care. We’ll also be focusing on renewed funding for community health centers and safety net hospitals.

The new deadline for enactment of all these appropriations bills in agreement with the Senate and White House is now Fri. Nov. 17, in order to avert a government shutdown. It’s also possible that another CR process may have to take place then.

Our basic message to Congress remains: “Stick to the bipartisan agreement enacted last spring under the Fiscal Responsibility Act as you finish up the appropriations bills. Any special commission proposal and social issue riders should be set aside during this budget process, and debated separately at another time.

Stand-Alone Health Care Bills

1.  Health care costs and transparency — Since the beginning of this year, committees in both the Senate and House have been crafting modest, bipartisan bills to a) regulate “pharmacy benefit managers” (PBMs), and b) improve transparency with regard to health care prices, particularly hospital-based services.

On the House side of things, various bills have been packaged together into the “Lower Costs, More Transparency Act” (HR 5378) – here’s a summary of the bill’s provisions. No members of New York’s House delegation –either Republicans or Democrats– are yet on this bill as co-sponsors.

On the Senate side, we await a package that will combine proposals from the Finance Committee, and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. It is expected to come forward later this fall once the budget process is done. Once it is out, negotiations will commence between the House and Senate and White House to come to agreement on a final bill that may pass by the end of this calendar year.

2.  Rx drugs – The historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is taking on the pharmaceutical industry in various ways to rein-in its long-running and widespread price-gouging and profiteering practices. However, this new law’s scope is limited to Medicare. The “Lower Drug Costs for American Families Act” (HR 4895) will build out the IRA’s Rx drug provisions beyond Medicare to other kinds of health insurance – here’s a summary.

So far, only 5 House Reps. from NY are co-sponsoring this bill: Goldman, Meng, Morelle, Nadler, and Tonko. It’s important to reach out to the rest of the delegation about it, to build momentum. No companion bill has yet been introduced in the Senate, but one is in development and expected out later this fall.

It’s important to note that public opinion research shows that support for taking on Big Pharma to lower drug prices and costs for patients is exceptionally high across the political spectrum, so this bill is a slam-dunk winning issue for us to push forward.

3.  Reproductive Freedom – The Women’s Health Protection Act (S.701/Baldwin, HR 12/Chu) would create a national law to guarantee the right to provide and access abortion care. Here is a bill summary. New York co-sponsors include Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and all Democratic Reps. (Bowman, Clarke, Espaillat, Goldman, Higgins, Jeffries, Meeks, Meng, Morelle, Nadler, Ocasio-Cortez, Ryan, Tonko, Torres, Velazquez.)

4.  Universal Health Care — Finally, we want to remind everyone that Medicare-for-All bills were introduced this past spring in each chamber, a goal we have supported for three decades now. These bills would create a truly universal health care program covering all Americans, and they have significant numbers of co-sponsors. HR 3421/Jayapal-Dingell has 112 co-sponsors, including 12 from NY (Bowman, Clarke, Espaillat, Goldman, Higgins, Meeks, Meng, Nadler, Ocasio-Cortez, Tonko, Torres, and Velazquez), S.1665/Sanders has 14 co-sponsors including Sen. Gillibrand from NY. Sen. Schumer supports it too, but given his position as Majority Leader he typically does not co-sponsor bills.

Given the current political constellation of Congress, neither of these two latter bills are expected to move forward at present.  However, they are important “goal bills” to point to as we focus also on those bills that are moving ahead. For us, our advocacy is never an either-or matter, but always a both-and one. We know it’s essential to focus on both longer-term and immediate matters to be most effective, and that a crucial political synergy exists between them – each effort enhances the other.

We urge everyone to reach out to your own member of Congress about any or all of the above matters, as well as Senators Schumer and Gillibrand.

In recent years, an emerging priority in social justice advocacy is to center advancing racial equity in one’s work, whatever the particular policy issue at hand may be. Given our nation’s long history of racism in all aspects of our society, we couldn’t agree more.

For over a year now, we’ve been working to advance this important goal as part of an ad-hoc coalition led by our colleagues at the Children’s Defense Fund of New York. Its joint effort is focused on the New York State Legislature. This group is promoting the general idea that all legislative and administrative initiatives addressing health, child well-being, and family economic mobility should be evaluated before adoption to assess its impacts with regard to improving racial equity.

Organizations who support this idea can sign-on to a letter to addressed to state legislators that calls on them to craft and pass legislation to require that all executive agency rules and regulations and all legislative bills include a “racial impact statement”.  Here’s where you can read the sign-on letter, and here is how an organization can endorse the letter.

One year ago today, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law. A major focus of this law are provisions to begin to lower Rx drug prices and out-of-pocket costs for people on Medicare and the Medicare program.

For the first time ever, Medicare will soon begin negotiating lower prices with drug corporations, reversing a ban that was put in place two decades ago by drug industry lobbyists when Medicare Part D was created. However, major drug corporations and their business allies are now suing Medicare to stop this new negotiation process.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone today at our rally to “Save Medicare’s Lower Drug Prices!”. We’re gathering at 12 noon outside the NYC office of Jones Day, the notorious right-wing law firm, located at 250 Vesey Street, along the Hudson River just west of the World Trade Center complex in lower Manhattan. Jones Day is representing two major drug corporations that have filed these lawsuits against Medicare: Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck.

Here’s all the information about our rally.

We’re also asking everyone to post items to your social media platforms about today’s anniversary. Here’s a handy toolkit you can use.

In addition, Senator Schumer’s office has reached out to us about an IRA anniversary video they are releasing at 9 a.m. today on his social media platforms, asking people to view and share it.

Here’s how the IRA is and will help people on Medicare afford the medicines they need:

• This year (2023)…  All vaccines are now free; insulin co-pays are capped at $35 per month; annual manufacturer price increases are limited to the general inflation rate (historically it’s been 3 times higher.)
• Next year (2024)… Premium increases for Medicare Part D are limited to 6% per year; the 5% co-pay is eliminated for Part D’s catastrophic coverage phase; eligibility for financial assistance to help pay Part D premiums is expanded to more low-income people.
• 2025… Total annual co-pays for medicine are capped at $2,000 per person.
• 2026… Lower negotiated drug prices go into effect.
• 2027 and beyond… More and more drugs are added into the negotiation system each year.

More background information is available here from our partners at the Medicare Rights Center. For a deep policy dive into the IRA and Rx drugs, here’s a really good slide deck from Kaiser Family Foundation.

Today we celebrate the 88^th anniversary of the Social Security Act being signed into law! Over nearly a century, it has since become a bedrock of social justice policy and law in the United States, growing to encompass many important health and economic security programs, most notably unemployment insurance, workers compensation, retirement income, disability insurance and SSI, maternal and child health and welfare, and Medicare and Medicaid.

Social Security programs are beloved and highly valued by people across the US, across the political spectrum. Yet there are still forces who want to scale it back or privatize it in the name of supposedly “saving it” and the ideas they talk about would actually undermine it as a social insurance program benefiting millions who live paycheck-to-paycheck.  

There are simple ways to stabilize the Social Security Trust Fund for many years into the future, such as lifting the cap on annual income subject to FICA contributions. In addition, there are bills in Congress to actually strengthen and expand Social Security to provide more help to more people. Meanwhile, House Speaker McCarthy says he favors setting up a special commission to fast-track changes behind closed doors – we know that’s a really bad and scary idea that will threaten the financial security and health of tens of millions of people and families.

How best to celebrate Social Security:

• Join a special virtual town hall today at 1 p.m.(E) on either YouTube or Facebook.
• Contact Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and YOUR House Rep. and tell them to reject Speaker McCarthy’s special commission idea. Urge them to instead support the Social Security Expansion Act (S.393/Sanders, HR 1046/Schakowsky) and the Social Security 2100 Act (S.2280 Blumenthal, HR 4583/Larson)
• Watch this terrific recent webinar about the history of Social Security and what can be done to protect and improve it:

AND IN ADDITION…

There’s one other, NEW anniversary happening this Wed. Aug. 16 – the Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law just one year ago. It is taking historic steps to lower Rx drug prices and co-pays for people on Medicare, and it can be built on to lower drug prices for people with other kinds of insurance over time.

We’re marking this new political holiday by holding a protest against the greedy drug corporations who are suing Medicare to stop its new Rx drug price negotiation program that will start to move ahead publicly in just 3 weeks on Sept. 1^st.

Here’s all the information on our protest. Please join us this Wed. at noon in lower Manhattan, along the Hudson River adjacent to the World Trade Center complex. Here are social media resources you can also use.