New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking Thursday at the opening of a health care center in Brooklyn for union members, defined the conflict over changing the health care laws in Washington as a class struggle.
Cuomo did not mention President Trump by name, but he said the nation’s health care is in “crisis” and the struggle is really about those with lots of money and those with lesser means.
“Make no mistake. The rich are always going to have the best health care system in the world,” Cuomo said. “What they’re trying to decide is what’s the health care for the rest of us.”
Cuomo says Republicans who lead Congress don’t want to subsidize health care so that the middle class, working class and poor can also have access to good quality care. The Congressional Budget Office says plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, will leave 22 million Americans without health insurance, and around 2 million in New York, including seniors, veterans and the disabled.
The governor says while it seems like plans to reverse Obamacare are dead in Congress for now, he says no one should be complacent, and compared the issue to a “snake in the grass."
“You think it’s dead but sometimes it’s just lying there,” said Cuomo. “And it jumps up and it bites you.”
Cuomo was at the opening of a health center in Brooklyn built by the hotel and motel trade workers union. It will provide health and dental services including eye care, mammograms, prescriptions and some surgeries for 90,000 union workers and their families. The governor and union leaders say the center is a model of how health care can be delivered in the U.S.
