The mayors of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy gathered in Schenectady for the announcement of $800,000 in funding to six local community-based organizations.
MVP Health Care and Healthy Alliance IPA officials announced the funding for Albany-based Trinity Alliance, Equinox, the Center For Disability Services and Northern Rivers, which will share the funding with City Mission of Schenectady and Troy's Unity House. MVP Health Care and Healthy Alliance IPA's Jacob Reider says funding channeled through IPA comes from a state program known as DSRIP: Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program. "So we've taken the money from that program and we've created this technical network. The technology connects the community-based organizations and allows a physician or a care manager or anybody in the community to say 'oh, you have a social problem that we can address.”
The program took a hit this week when New York announced the Trump administration is not allowing the state to continue its DSRIP waiver, saying it will open up a $625 million health care spending shortfall.
Reider says each organization will direct the funding to tackle social determinants of health – the conditions in which people are born, live, grow, work, and age – by providing supports to address social services, domestic violence, housing, complex medical needs, transportation, and more. "And remember, if we address these problems, before folks turn the social challenges into medical problems, then A, there will be less suffering. People won't have to, and the metaphor we often use is 'fall down the waterfall,' right? So we want to handle problems upstream before they become medical problems, because when they become medical problems, they get to the doctors. Does anybody like going to the doctor? I certainly don't. Right. So when you get to the doctors, we know it's a medical problem. The costs are higher and the suffering is greater."
"I'm really optimistic and excited about what can happen as we work with these incredible community-based organizations going forward." ~ Democratic Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan:
Projects begin immediately and will continue for two years. Democratic Troy Mayor Patrick Madden says "the tale of healthcare in the United States seems like a tale of two cities." "For those on the fortunate side of the ledger, there is access to some of the most technologically advanced health care in the world, with little or no out of pocket cost apparently. And for those on the other side of the ledger, those with few resources, those without employer sponsored plans, those with chronic health issues, those living in environments plagued with pathogens, those who can't advance in school or in a career because of health struggles, it must seem surely seem as though there is no fairness in the system. "
Democratic Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan: "I'm really optimistic and excited about what can happen as we work with these incredible community-based organizations going forward. How we as cities can be partners with you. One of the things that the city of Albany has looked at when it comes to the opportunity index, in the city of Albany, which was the worst in the country, of the hundred largest cities for the disparities between opportunities that are available in our predominantly affluent and Caucasian neighborhoods and those that are predominantly low income and black and brown neighborhoods. We looked at what our role could be in creating better opportunities."
Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy is also a Democrat. “It’s the messaging that has to go out every day. Where we talk to people, we educate people, we make those incremental changes in their lives, in diet and behavior, that have such dramatic impact on their overall quality of health, and just their ability to enjoy their lives.”
