New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). Credit: Newsday LLC/Contributor/Getty Images
To boost the state’s beleaguered healthcare industry, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has promised $10 billion — the largest financial commitment to the industry in New York State’s history. Hochul made the announcement Wednesday afternoon during her first state-of-the state address in Albany.
“We simply do not have enough healthcare workers in our hospitals, in our long-term care facilities, in our ambulances or the homes of our loved ones,” Hochul said. “The health of every New Yorker depends on a stable healthcare system and these workers are its very foundation.”
The proposed investment includes $3,000 in retention bonuses to direct care workers, tuition assistance and stipends to train and retain healthcare workers, and more flexible licensing requirements that would allow doctors and nurses from other states to practice in New York.
Hochul acknowledged that New York state had a healthcare shortage before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the nearly two-year pandemic and the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers have turned the shortage into a crisis. The president and CEO of the New York State Association of Healthcare Providers told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse last month many home healthcare agencies saw up to 20% of their staff walk off the job before the mandate went into effect last fall because they didn’t want to get vaccinated.
Absent from Hochul’s address was any mention of the proposed Fair Pay for Home Care Act, which would boost wages for New York home care workers by establishing a base of 150% of the state’s minimum wage. In December, 40 county executives penned a letter to Hochul urging her to sign the bill that has been languishing in the state legislature since last spring.
