Marian Woodward is on a tight budget but always makes sure her bills are paid. Like many older adults, she’s on a fixed income.

“Because I don't have a retirement. That's all I have is Social Security," says Woodward.

In his final weeks as Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer is making it a priority to stave off the end of Medicare coverage for telehealth and related services, set to expire at the end of the year.

“They won’t do it anymore, and that means if you want telehealth, you have to pay it out of your own pocket, or the hospital has to pay for it,” he said of the looming deadline known as the “telehealth cliff.”

One of the keys to helping people climb out of opioid addiction is to ensure access to help, including access to buprenorphine, a medication proven to reduce overdose deaths.

A 2023 federal law called the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act, or MAT Act, helps to do just that by increasing the number of medical professionals who can prescribe the drug from 130,000 to 1.8 million.

A group of New York state lawmakers, who are mothers and call themselves "the Mom Squad," are urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign several pieces of legislation aimed to improve access to child care, according to a letter they sent to the governor this week.

The lawmakers say they are addressing legislation that would:

New York state will adopt new regulations for the middlemen negotiating prescription drug prices between wholesalers and pharmacies.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's office says the new rules for pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, will protect access to prescription drugs, prohibit practices that increase costs and help independent pharmacies compete with larger ones, which sometimes operate their own PBMs.

With a new administration in Washington, drug policy experts are watching carefully who President-elect Donald Trump will nominate for a variety of roles within his cabinet.

Trump’s picks to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, DEA and FDA will affect harm reduction policies, policing and addiction treatment.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Across the country, independent pharmacies say they're struggling.

According to a recent New York Times investigation, nearly 800 zip codes that had at least one pharmacy in 2015 now have none. Bretta Grinsteinner works for Epic Pharmacy Network, an administrative organization that supports these small businesses and advocates on their behalf.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Save the Michaels of the World has three locations in Western New York where it provides services for people struggling with addiction.

President Avi Israel said in the last two months, 277 people have entered treatment programs at the facilities and 20 have already come back.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It comes as New York state and the nation are experiencing both an infant and maternal mortality crisis.

Lawmakers and advocates say New York is making progress when it comes to exploring and implementing solutions, but there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.

A coalition of groups in the New York business sector sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul to veto a bill that would significantly expand the state's wrongful death statute.

Both houses of the New York state Legislature passed a version of the bill this year, referred to by supporters as the Grieving Families Act, with broad support for the third straight session this year. Hochul has twice vetoed the legislation citing concerns about impacts on things like insurance premiums, hospitals and municipalities.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering three bills that are part of a bipartisan effort to solve New York’s child care crisis.

As a parent, Eduardo Hernandez stressed that he knows the struggle of securing child care in New York. As an organizer for the Alliance for Quality Education, he’s joining forces with lawmakers to urge Hochul to sign the pieces of legislation, intended to modernize the process and criteria for getting assistance.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Late last week, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General released a report detailing the cases of 42 different patients in the Buffalo system who did not receive timely care under the VA's community care program.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she is horrified by the stories, including one case in which a veteran with terminal cancer suffered debilitating, uncontrolled pain over the last two months of his life as he waited for treatment.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed several bills into law aimed to expand coverage of women’s health during and after pregnancy, the governor announced Wednesday.

One piece of legislation allows pregnant women to enroll in health insurance policies at any time without penalty and prohibits commercial health maintenance organizations from charging fees for special enrollment due to pregnancy.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law Tuesday that aims to expand insurance coverage of breast cancer screenings and imaging to include procedures recommended by nationally recognized clinical practice guidelines that detect the disease.

The legislation amends insurance law to require health insurance plans to cover breast cancer screening and diagnostic imaging if a doctor recommends it based on those clinical guidelines, which include evidence-based standards developed by independent organizations or medical professional societies.

New York state has announced which company has been chosen to manage the $9 billion contract for a Medicaid home care program.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) will be managed statewide by Public Partnerships, LLC. There will be 30 regional partners as well.

A recent report by the New York State Department of Health found that 88% of menthol users in New York identify as Black or African American. The report is called "Menthol is Not Just a Flavor: Aggressive Marketing to Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Lower Income Communities Fuels Persistent Disparities in Menthol Cigarette Use."

It identified differences in how menthol cigarette were marketed to poorer and minority communities.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed several bills into law Wednesday that aims to ensure equitable access to health care and expand resources for emergency service providers.

One piece of legislation will authorize Medicaid reimbursements to emergency medical service agencies for providing emergency medical care to Medicaid enrollees without requiring the transportation of these patients from the place where medical care was administered. It would also permit Medicaid payments to be made to EMS services when they transport individuals to alternative care facilities instead of only hospitals.

About $50 million in funding awards will go to support child care facilities across New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday.

The funds will impact an estimated 5,500 seats at those facilities.

Newly proposed federal legislation aims to make supplemental breast cancer screenings more accessible.

U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle announced the new proposal at the Breast Cancer Coalition in Rochester.

New York’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board met in Albany, Buffalo and New York City Friday.

The board is part of the mechanism in charge of directing over $2 billion the state has and is expected received from settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors.

A bill sponsored by Rochester Democratic state Assemblymember Harry Bronson and state Sen. Samra Brouk would allow creative arts therapists to directly bill Medicaid, expanding access to low-income New Yorkers, is waiting to be delivered to the governor for her signature or veto. Brouk said these therapists provide a connection to therapy that might not be possible for people in traditional talk therapy.

Creative arts therapists are licensed and trained professionals who use arts and other methods to help connect with patients who might otherwise not connect through talk therapy. Brouk, who chairs the state Senate Mental Health Committee, says this can be especially important for refugee or immigrant communities where there may be a language barrier.

Child care is so expensive that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called it a “broken market” in 2021 because when you pay for it, “the price does not account for all the positive things it confers on society.”

Part of the problem is that one individual can only care for a limited number of children, and those costs are passed on to families. Because those costs are higher than what they may earn in wages, many mothers with college degrees are opting to stay home with their children.

Americans for Contraception’s “IUD Express tour" stopped in Albany Thursday. It’s part of an effort to push Congress to pass the Right to Contraception Act — with some powerful symbolism.

That symbolism came in the form of a 20-foot inflatable IUD in the shadow of the state Capitol. The inflatable has been making its way to cities around the country, but this was really about getting people in Albany’s attention about a battle that is taking place in Washington.

If a person’s health depends on daily medication, chances are they’re spending hundreds of dollars a month at the pharmacy.

“Coverage gaps, high co-pays and expensive medications are problems we face every day in pharmacy,” said Isaac Mall, the clinical director at Crestwood Pharmacy in Albany. “And I’ve been seeing it for the past five years.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul will soon consider a bill that would require the state commissioner of health to develop guidance to incorporate maternal depression screenings into routine care. It comes as New York is experiencing a maternal and infant mortality crisis.

Mental health is a leading cause of maternal deaths contributing to that crisis, and the hope is that by framing what adequate treatment should look like, more women will feel comfortable getting the help that they need.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Options Care Center is a Jamestown-based pregnancy center that promotes alternatives to abortion and provides free services including pregnancy tests, parenting classes and material assistance.

The organization used to provide literature regarding a progesterone treatment it suggested could reverse the effects of medication-based abortion.

New York state has paid more than $2 billion in bonuses to more than 800,000 health care workers through a program launched in 2022 and provided bonuses of up to $3,000 for eligible health care workers, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday.

The state’s Health Care Worker Bonus Program issued payments to workers who provide hands-on and patient-facing health care services. Eligible workers must have an annualized base salary of $125,000 or less and can be full-time or part-time.

New York home care providers are concerned recent changes to a Medicaid program that helps disabled people, and future health care cuts, could place greater burdens on the system amid increased demand.

The state Health Department on Thursday responded to questions about Request for Proposals to choose one company to oversee the state's Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program after reports of widespread fraud.

The Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council met in Albany on Wednesday. The group has been tasked with drafting recommendations for Gov. Kathy Hochul on how child poverty in New York can be cut in half by 2031.

With just four months to go until the council is expected to issue those recommendations, the meeting focused on using what the group has learned so far to identify which policy proposals can do the most good under budgetary and political constraints.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Access to finding the right medical care can be something easily taken for granted.

“People that are more marginalized or where the care is more stigmatized have more trouble finding doctors and other clinicians who are sensitive to their needs and willing to take care of them,” said Dr. Elana Tal, a clinical assistant professor of OBGYN at the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine.

Last week, Capital Tonight hosted the father of 22-year-old Ethan Bherwani who died at a casino in Connecticut after unknowingly ingesting fentanyl while celebrating his graduation from college.

While it’s unclear whether the casino had naloxone (the opioid reversal drug) on-hand, no one administered the drug to Ethan, or gave him any kind of help for 11 minutes.

The New York state Department of Health needs to do more to ensure maternal deaths and morbidity rates decline, according to an audit released Tuesday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

The audit found federal and state health data shows pregnancy-related health conditions and death rates have increased since a taskforce was established in 2018 to address maternal health and racial disparities.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Following recent pressure from addiction services organizations, the New York state Department of Health appears to be open to purchasing other brands of opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone besides the most well-known, Narcan.

However, that likely won't happen until at least next year. The DOH confirmed Thursday it will opt in to another year of the current $21 million contract with pharmaceutical subsidiary Emergent Devices.

Liz Urbanski-Farrell has spent a career in the U.S. and elsewhere trying to change the health outcomes of people who live in rural areas.

As the new executive director of the New York state Association for Rural Health, she told Capital Tonight that 44 of New York state’s 63 counties are either partly or fully rural, a number that comprises 85% of the state, including enormous swaths of upstate.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday threw a wrench into the complicated negotiated settlements between Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and the many interested parties – including New York state – that have claims against Purdue for contributing to the opioid crisis.

The settlements that Purdue and the Sackler family had reached promised $6 billion to claimants in exchange for personal immunity from liability for the Sackler family.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- At this time, New York is essentially a Narcan-only state when it comes to drugs that first responders can use to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

The state, through a non-competitive bid process, contracted pharmaceutical company Emergent Devices to supply the name brand naloxone through the end of July.

The federal Right to Contraception Act, which would codify a person’s right to access and a health care provider's right to provide contraception and information into federal law, has its first Republican cosponsor in upstate New York U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Republican who represents the 19th Congressional District, which voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, said “we need to do more to support women and the choices they make” and adds that the bill “is commonsense and a good place to start.”

Medicaid-managed care organizations (MCOs) made millions of dollars in improper and questionable payments to providers who did not appear to be enrolled in Medicaid, according to an audit released Tuesday by New York state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

Providers are supposed to be enrolled generally under federal and state law. The state Department of Health pays for Medicaid in two ways — fee-for-service and managed care. Under fee-for-service, DOH pays Medicaid enrolled providers directly for health care services. Under managed care, DOH pays monthly premiums to MCOs for each enrolled Medicaid recipient and in exchange MCOs arrange for services with providers.

The New York state Senate on Wednesday passed a legislative package aimed to expand resources for emergency service providers, Democratic leadership announced.

The legislation is made up of bills that would:

The nursing profession is facing multiple challenges.

Inadequate levels of nursing staff are contributing to burnout, leading to fewer nurses. Plus, there’s a shortage of faculty who can teach students nursing.

The FBI has issued public warnings about hospice fraud in four states — Texas, Arizona, Nevada and California. The bureau is alerting consumers to a wide-spread scam in which patients are enrolled in hospice without their knowledge by recruiters who “sell” hospice care to people who aren’t actually eligible.

The alarm was sounded about this kind of fraud two years ago by the New Yorker and Pro Publica.

The child poverty rate in New York remains one of the highest in the country and is “alarmingly” high in some cities, according to a report released Thursday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

The report found New York’s child poverty rate ranked 41st in the nation in 2022, which was at least six percentage points higher than states that border New York. More than 2.7 million New York residents were living in poverty in 2022 and more than a quarter of them were children, the report said. Almost half of all children living in poverty are in “deep poverty,” meaning they are in a household with income that is 50% below the federal poverty line.

Could this be the year that Albany passes the Medical Aid in Dying Act?

Advocates have been pushing the bill for almost 10 years, but they say there are several reasons to be especially hopeful this session: According to a variety of polls, about two-thirds of Americans support the issue. Also, the sponsors of the bill are two powerful lawmakers, the chair of the Assembly Health Committee Amy Paulin and the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Brad Hoylman-Sigal.

People aged 65 and over are the fastest-growing segment of New York state’s population, but according to AARP, the nation's largest organization dedicated to empowering older Americans, you wouldn’t know it from this year’s enacted New York state budget.

“Older adults were, for the most part, left out of the budget,” Beth Finkel, AARP’s New York state director, told Capital Tonight.

The New York state Child Care Availability Task Force released its latest report Friday highlighting progress and initiatives that it says has enhanced child care services in the state.

The report comes after the state budget recently passed by the New York Legislature that continues the ongoing four-year $7 billion investment to expand access to affordable child care and invest the child care workforce.

A coalition of attorneys general led by New York's Letitia James is calling on Congress to expand access to in vitro fertilization and other reproductive health services.

The group wants lawmakers to pass the Access to Family Building Act.

New York’s highest court will hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that seeks to throw out a regulation requiring health insurance policies to cover medically necessary abortions — a case that could jeopardize a similar state law.

The lawsuit was filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and other church groups that argue that the rule violates their religious beliefs.

New York’s proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act got the endorsement from the Medical Society of the State of New York, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsors the legislation in that chamber, announced Monday.

The act would allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who have been given six months or less to live to take their own lives with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs.

Advocates for people living with disabilities are continuing their effort to shut down a proposal that that would reform the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP.

While the program has had some challenges, including unethical providers using it for their own gain, advocates argue a late-breaking proposal to eliminate all providers, including the disability-led and disability-staffed Independent Living Centers, and turn over operations to a single Fiscal Intermediary (FI) would mean an upheaval of a program that helps hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers with disabilities maintain independence in the community.

The two architects behind New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act have amended added additional safeguards to the legislation in the hope it can soon become law.

The act would allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who have been given six months or less to live to take their own lives with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs.

Monday kicks off National Donate Life Month, where people are encouraged to check their organ donation status to make an impact on someone’s life while they are here or after they pass away.

New York state Assemblyman Phil Palmesano, an organ donor himself, told Capital Tonight "this isn’t a Democrat or a Republican issue," and adds more needs to be done to get New York higher up on the donor ranking lists.

Earlier this week, New York lawmakers, advocates and people living with cancer came to Albany to outline their budget and legislative priorities as lawmakers continue to hammer out a final budget deal. The advocates are looking for more funding for the Cancer Services Program, expanding access to paid family medical leave and diminishing the impact of medical debt, among other things.

Advocates are calling for more funding for two programs in the state, the cancer services program and the tobacco control program. The Cancer Services Program provides breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screenings to New Yorkers without or with inadequate health insurance while meeting certain age and income requirements.

Three of the top 10 cities in the United States with the highest child poverty rates are right here in New York state: Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.

In the Bronx, more than one in three children live below the federal poverty level.

Some New York lawmakers and advocates are pushing the state to invest more in prevention, treatment and recovery when it comes to substance use disorders. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Senate and Assembly all made slightly different budget proposals for fighting the crisis.

Advocates like Addiction Recovery coach Judy Moffitt are asking for addiction in New York state to be declared a state of emergency, and what is behind that effort is a series of items being pushed to address the crisis, some that are included in those budgets and some that aren’t.

More than $3 million in federal funding is on its way to the Finger Lakes region to improve health care access and shore up emergency operations, U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced Monday.

The funding, $3,173,000, will help provide health care and supportive services to underserved communities and improve health care infrastructure. It will also make emergency operations more resilient to energy disruptions, ensuring that first responders maintain their ability to respond quickly.

Some upstate nursing homes are pushing for changes in how Medicaid reimbursements are handled.

They say the current allocation method disproportionately benefits large downstate nursing homes while hurting smaller facilities already struggling to get by.

In January, Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that proponents said would protect tropical rainforests against deforestation and degradation.

Along with Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, Sen. Liz Krueger sponsored the "New York’s Tropical Deforestation-Free Procurement Act,” which would have closed loopholes in an existing ban on the use of tropical hardwoods by New York state’s agencies and authorities.

Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, joined Capital Tonight on Wednesday to discuss how the legislative budget proposals leave some behavioral health staff in the cold.

Back in 2019, several upstate New York hospice providers serving rural counties, including Chenango, Montgomery, Oneida and Onondaga, successfully fended off an incursion into their jurisdiction by a new kind of health care collaboration. The New York state Department of Health (DOH) had approved a request by the Bassett Healthcare Network and Helios Care for a regulatory waiver under the Hospital-Home Care-Physician Collaboration Program under Public Health Law 2805-x.

The law was intended to promote innovative collaborations in health care.

New York state has the lowest utilization of hospice in the country, which can be attributed to several factors, including low health literacy rates. But the state’s recent progress in support of end-of-life care may be threatened by something even more insidious: corporate greed.

To investigate that issue nationally, a joint request for information was issued by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Trade Commission into private equity-backed health care and its impact on quality.

Contraception will be made available to walk-in patients at New York pharmacies, following an order signed Tuesday morning by state Department of Health Commissioner James McDonald.

McDonald and Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared at Albany College of Pharmacy's College Parkside Pharmacy on Tuesday for the signing.

Lawmakers at the federal level are taking steps to protect in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

Alabama's Supreme Court ruled last month those embryos are children with rights, leading many providers to stop services over liability concerns. The state's lawmakers quickly passed a law to try and restore protections and allow some clinics to reopen.

Forty-six states are in the process of disbursing $26 billion in opioid settlement money – that money may balloon to about $50 billion.

In New York, there are two bodies that direct the flow of settlement funds to the people who need help: the New York State Office of Addiction Services & Supports (OASAS), and the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board, which was established in 2022 to provide OASAS with recommendations regarding how that funding should be allocated.

Physician assistant Luis Garcia wants to openly share his thoughts on a proposed piece of legislation that he says will transform healthcare access for many.

“Unfortunately, due to the shortage of providers, there are people who are not getting the right care and they're waiting too long to get basic care,” Garcia said.

Pushing for a cost-of-living adjustment for human services workers was the subject of a rally at the New York state Capitol on Monday.

Not only that, but also at hand was the urge to form a panel that would ensure wages not be allowed to slump to levels that have brought groups out multiple times already this session.

New state legislation is looking to "clear the air" of underaged vaping.

A new bill is intended to ban the sale of e-cigarette products that resemble school supplies, toys, or are packaged in a way to appeal to minors.

There is currently no language in New York state law that clarifies frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization procedures are not classified as people.

State Sen. Jack Martins, R-Old Westbury, has introduced legislation to do that.

An analysis of managed long term care plans, or MTLC plans, by former New York state Budget Director Paul Francis, who is currently with Step Two Policy Project, found that the state could save money if it eliminated the MTLC plans and returned to a fee-for-service model.

The analysis found that the total annual gross savings from eliminating MTLC plans in 2025 would save over $900 million and that the state share gross savings reaches over $400 million.

Seventeen New York hospitals and health systems sued 1,600 patients, collecting $9 million in medical debts since 2022, according to a USA Today report released last July. One woman's husband was sued for more than $10,000 by SUNY Upstate Medical University before he passed away from pancreatic cancer.

“I couldn’t understand why they would sue a terminally ill man – and neither could he," said Linda Koberna.

Nursing homes in New York were hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic and are still struggling to recover.

Nursing homes have been asking for help from the state to keep them afloat.

Nearly 60% of New York voters support the Medical Aid in Dying Act (A.995 Paulin/S. 2445 Hoylman-Sigal), according to a recent Siena College poll.

The act would allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who have been given six months or less to live to take their own lives with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs.

Even as the worst snowstorm in years hit New York City on Tuesday, hundreds of advocates and people in recovery rallied at the state Capitol Tuesday for Stand Up for Recovery Day. The day celebrates the promise of recovery from addiction and serves as a chance to educate elected officials on the recovery movement.

“Especially nowadays, with the drugs being so lethal, when folks make it to recovery, you’ve got to really support them staying there,” said attorney and drug policy expert Rob Kent, president of Kent Strategic Advisors.

A broad group of stakeholders from across New York on Thursday sent a letter to the state Senate and Assembly Health Committee chairs, asking them to drop their support for a bill to replace the state’s managed long-term care programs with a fee-for-service system.

Capital Tonight discussed this issue last week with bill sponsor and Senate Health Committee Chairman Gustavo Rivera, who said the “Home Care Savings & Reinvestment Act” (S.7800/A.8470), which would stop the state from paying for Managed Long Term Care plans (MLTCs), could save between $1 billion and $2 billion annually.

The New York state Office of Mental Health needs to do better at overseeing timely treatment for individuals under a state law that requires people in a mental health crisis receive treatment, according to an audit released Thursday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office.

Known as Kendra's Law, the state allows court-ordered Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) for those with serious mental illness that pose risks to themselves or others and whose treatment history meets a set of criteria.

Safety net hospitals can be an essential service for some of the most underserved communities across New York. Advocates say Medicaid is the largest source of funding for those hospitals.

Now, a group of Rochester-area lawmakers, health officials and health care advocates are asking for more state funding for Medicaid as many of those safety net hospitals have been closing recently due to a lack of money. The group came together at Strong Memorial Hospital on Monday to call on Gov. Hochul to fully fund the Medicaid Health Insurance Program.

Advocates came to Albany this week rallying to enhance emergency medical services (EMS) across the state. It comes as those in the field say wait times are getting longer, due in part to a lack of volunteers and funding.

The goal is to figure out ways to ensure coverage for all New Yorkers without taking away from the work being done by people who are devoting their lives to these services each and every day.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, child poverty more than doubled nationwide since the expiration of the federal child tax credit.

Additionally, child poverty rates in New York are on the rise. State Assembly Children and Families Committee Chairman Andrew Hevesi has proposed legislation to rectify that.

An advertising agency that helped develop marketing campaigns for OxyContin and other prescription painkillers has agreed to pay U.S. states $350 million rather than face the possibility of trials over its role in the opioid crisis, attorneys general said Thursday.

Publicis Health, part of the Paris-based media conglomerate Publicis Groupe, agreed to pay the entire settlement in the next two months, with most of the money to be used to fight the overdose epidemic.

In this partisan political environment, it’s rare to hear an elected official admit he’s changed his mind, but New York state Assemblyman Al Taylor acknowledges he did.

“I didn’t want to have that conversation because I had an opinion. It was a strong opinion,” he told Capital Tonight of his opposition to the Medical Aid in Dying Act. “And life shifts.”

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- For nearly a decade, New York state Assemblymember Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, has backed legislation to allow terminally ill patients to request pharmaceuticals for the purpose of speeding up their deaths and providing legal protections to the physicians who prescribe them.

Currently, 10 states and Washington, D.C. have passed something similar.

Families and stakeholders met Tuesday in Albany for a "day of action" to push for expanded access to maternal health care, specifically midwifery.

While New York state currently licenses two types of primarily hospital based midwives, certified professional midwives, who specialize in home care outside of a hospital setting, are not allowed to practice in New York state.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has made fighting the state’s mental health crisis a priority in this year’s budget, calling it "the defining challenge of our time."

She is proposing $4.8 billion to address serious mental illness as well as mental health issues among younger people. Advocates and lawmakers say they are encouraged but concerned about filling the positions necessary to fight the crisis, while taking care of and retaining the existing workforce.

New York women are nearly twice as likely than men to be caregivers for a loved one, according to a new report from AARP New York released Wednesday.

The report, based on a fall 2023 survey commissioned by AARP New York, found 66% of women say they are caregivers versus 34% of men and help with a wide range of daily living assistance from shopping to nursing tasks.

More than $50 million is available to help community-based hospitals expand access to mental health treatment for children and adults, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday.

The funding will allow those facilities to add new inpatient capacity. It will provide awards of up to $5 million to cover design, property acquisition, and construction costs associated with this expansion. Eligible facilities include Article 28 licensed general hospitals and freestanding Article 31 psychiatric hospitals, which operate programs licensed or certified by and in good standing with the state Office of Mental Health.

More than 100 organizations are calling for opioid settlement dollars to fund and expand overdose prevention centers, according to a letter dated Monday sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Made up of criminal justice reform groups, AIDS service and harm reduction providers and health care organizations, the letter states the disapproval of the state’s rejection of recommendations from the state Opioid Settlement Advisory Board to fund harm reduction efforts including needle exchanges, fentanyl strips, in-patient treatment and safe injection sites.

Two New York state lawmakers announced legislation Thursday that would expand coverage for breast cancer screenings and bolster early detection for women at higher risk.

A bill from Democratic state Sen. John Mannion and Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright would expand insurance coverage for women in New York to those with second-degree family members, like grandmothers, granddaughters, aunts or nieces, who have had breast cancer.

New York state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a report Wednesday criticizing the state’s progress in addressing pandemic-related issues in nursing homes.

It is in response to an initial audit in March 2022 that found the state was unprepared to respond to infectious disease outbreaks in these facilities.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced a $100 million investment in child care to address the shortage that faces families.

The investment includes a $50 million tax credit to incentivize businesses to provide child care services for employees.

A few weeks ago, Capital Tonight discussed why advocates are pushing Gov. Kathy Hochul to declare an addiction public health state of emergency. Since then, calls for her to do so have only grown louder as hundreds of providers, families and members of the Legislature from across the state rallied at the Empire State Plaza on Monday.

Capital Tonight asked the Hochul administration about her position on calling for such a state of emergency. While spokesman Avi Small didn’t directly answer the question, he did point out that the governor is personally familiar with the tragedies behind the epidemic.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed several pieces of legislation Wednesday aimed to protect New Yorkers from medicine price-gouging and financial consequences related to medical debt, the governor's office said.

One law prohibits the sale of medicine for an unconscionably excessive price throughout a drug shortage, which would be defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A coalition of child advocacy groups have sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul calling for the state to follow the lead of Washington and Oregon and keep continuous health insurance coverage for children under the age of 6.

The coalition said the continuation of coverage will “reap many benefits for our state.”

On this World AIDS Day, lawmakers and advocates joined together in Rochester to call for passage of legislation that would expand access to housing for people living with HIV/AIDS.

State Assembly Member Harry Bronson, a Rochester Democrat who sponsors the legislation, joined Capital Tonight to discuss the legislation and the need for affordable housing for this community.

A day ahead of World AIDS Day, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law that bars long-term care facilities and their staff from discriminating against any resident on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status.

“New York's seniors should be able to live their lives with the dignity and respect they deserve, free from discrimination of every kind,” said Hochul. “LGBTQIA + and HIV-positive seniors are among our most vulnerable populations, and today we are taking steps to ensure that all New Yorkers - regardless of who they are, who they love or their HIV status - find safety and support in places where they need it the most. Hate will never have a place in New York.”

The New York state Office of Mental Health is taking steps to prevent suicide.

The office Thursday reconvened the suicide prevention task force to enhance statewide prevention efforts with a renewed focus on helping at-risk populations. That includes communities of color disproportionally impacted by suicide or suicidal ideation. Established in partnership with the Office of Mental Health's Suicide Prevention Center of New York, the task force will build on existing prevention efforts and explore the mental health challenges laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New York state Department of Health issued a standing order Wednesday that would allow pharmacists to administer the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine to those 60 and older and pregnant people without a separate prescription from their physician, DOH Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said.

“This updated standing order expands access to the RSV vaccine, allowing pregnant people to protect their unborn child from RSV and also allows older adults to protect themselves, all with a simple trip to the pharmacy for the vaccine,” McDonald said in a statement Wednesday. “As RSV can cause serious illness in infants and older adults, I strongly encourage all who are eligible to get the shot now to protect their own health and their loved ones.”