New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has announced a plan to provide health coverage to nearly 3 million uninsured residents. The plan would expand current health insurance programs to cover more working- and middle-class families.
The plan is expect to cost between 3 and 6 billion dollars a year. Governor Spitzer claims the plan will lower insurance costs for businesses, and that cuts to the state’s Medicaid program will also absorb some of the cost.
“I"ve always believed that when all is said and done, the cost of insuring all individuals will be less than the cost of not insuring them, ” said Governor Spitzer. “The unmeasured cost of the diseases we do not prevent, and the cost to society of the diseases we should be tending to but aren"t, outweighs the cost of insurance. ”
The new program will be deployed in a series of steps over several years. New York’s Deputy Secretary of Health, Dennis P. Whalen, called the program “foundational steps to march us toward universal health care. ”