Subject:
Funding for SUNY Hospitals
Message:
Dear Legislator:
As a voter and constituent in your district, I urge you to restore state funding for SUNY's state-owned, state-operated, public hospitals and health sciences centers.
The 2023-24 executive budget fails to provide any critical mission funding or state coverage of debt service payments to these hospitals. Our state hospitals desperately need this funding to continue delivering accessible and affordable health care to the communities they serve.
These vital public health institutions have been teetering on fiscal insolvency for many years. In fact, when adjusted for inflation, from SFY 2008-09 to the present day, SUNY hospitals have lost nearly $2 billion dollars in state funding. These funding cuts are unsustainable and state funding is needed in this year’s enacted budget to stabilize these hospitals.
I ask that you support the following investments in SUNY’s three state public teaching hospitals:
• Restore the state subsidy for these public hospitals to $175 million, as also requested by the SUNY Board of Trustees;
• Reinstate and make permanent the coverage of capital debt service for the SUNY hospitals; and
• Enact a multi-year capital program at SUNY Downstate with an initial investment of $100 million to modernize and upgrade the emergency department and the maternity ward.
The three SUNY teaching hospitals — in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse — provide crucial services to many, including at-risk and marginalized populations across upstate New York, the greater Brooklyn area and in Suffolk County on Long Island. These vital public institutions have been pushed to the brink of insolvency, faced privatization efforts and have been treated inequitably when compared to other state public institutions.
The dire fiscal situations faced by our hospitals are directly attributable to deliberate financial neglect by the state. This financial neglect is counterproductive and will have detrimental effects to our state's health care system if continued. This system has undoubtedly been severely strained by the pandemic, which has also exposed a critical health care staffing shortage.
The state should invest in and utilize our SUNY hospitals to help solve this growing problem. The SUNY teaching hospitals play a crucial role in educating and training the next generation of medical professionals. Their mission must be financially supported and expanded if we are going to begin to address the medical staffing crisis in this state. The state should take advantage of our own ability to produce these professionals right here at home.
Access to affordable health care is a right, and one that I ask you to affirm by fully funding New York state's public hospitals.
I ask that you raise this important issue with your colleagues in conference. Thank you for your commitment to and all that you do to support SUNY.
Sincerely,
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