New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday lambasted congressional Republicans’ massive tax and spending law and assembled members of her cabinet to address federal cuts to the state as a result of that legislation, saying “the human toll of this is beyond unconscionable.”
Hochul said the law signed earlier this month by President Donald Trump will destabilize the state's health insurance program, strip 1.5 million New Yorkers of their health insurance and puts 3 million New Yorkers at risk of losing their food benefits.
“It will utterly destabilize our health insurance program,” Hochul said in Albany. “Cuts of about $13 billion a year between New York state and our overall health care system. One point five million New Yorkers will be stripped of health insurance, something many of us when we were in Congress fought for from the Affordable Care Act. It will be cutting essential funding for hospitals and health care systems and without a doubt putting lives at risk.”
The law, dubbed by Republicans and Trump as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” cuts Medicaid funding by more than $1 trillion over 10 years. A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation predicts those cuts, in addition to changes in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, will result in 17 million people losing health insurance.
“Medicaid is literally the lifeline for one in three New Yorkers,” Hochul said. “Cutting this essential health care doesn't keep people from getting sick. It doesn’t stop babies from being born. It’s simply saying you’re on your own, tearing apart the safety net that people in the country have come to rely on throughout their lives.”
The federal budget legislation imposes new work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to implement. And it changes eligibility for federal subsidies for health insurance for legal noncitizens.
New York Budget Director Blake Washington said it will cost the state an extra $3 billion per year to cover all people affected by the changes.
"The noncitizens covered under current law are green card-holders and persons who have been here, large case, plus or minus five years," Washington said.
The governor directed members of her cabinet to find creative ways to cut spending as the state has to fill a $750 million budget gap this fiscal year and limit long-term damage to health care and other programs.
State agencies will make proposals to the state Budget Division about how to cut spending, which could include staff cuts.
"It's going to be an iterative process — one that we're going to work through over the next handful of months," the budget director told reporters in Albany. "...They're scrutinizing incoming expenditures and making sure that the highest are the best use of state resources — protecting the taxpayer, but also making sure that the high-quality services that we deliver in the state of New York continue to be so."
Hochul also said the cuts will impact more than just people who rely on Medicaid.
“For those who say ‘Well I’m not on Medicaid, it doesn’t affect me,’ when that hospital — perhaps one of five in the North Country closes — you and your family don’t have anywhere to go either if you have an accident, car accident, need some emergency treatments,” Hochul said.
The governor said the cuts to Medicaid go hand in hand with the law’s changes to SNAP, which add up to nearly $200 billion over 10 years and expands work requirements from age 54 to age 64.
Changes in the law put 3 million New Yorkers at risk of losing their food benefits — shifting over $1.3 billion of costs to the state.
“They rely on this — they’re receiving these benefits because they don’t have an alternative and it totally ignores the fact that so many people are already struggling," Hochul said. "...It's an intentional inflection of pain on the people in our great state and in our country."
Last week, the governor said state leaders couldn't have prepared for the cuts while negotiating a $254 billion budget this spring.
But on Thursday, Hochul defended top Democrats' fiscal strategies and argued the state did prepare. The governor said she decided to reduce her one-time inflation rebate checks to be given to middle- and low-income New Yorkers this year by $1 billion.
And Hochul said she and her cabinet have responded to crises before, and stand ready to fill multi-billion-dollar budget gaps in the coming years.
"We're battle tested — we're ready to lead," Hochul said. "We have been leading."
Earlier this week, state lawmakers told Spectrum News 1 they don’t anticipate returning to Albany before the end of the year to address the impacts of the federal spending cuts.
Hochul also said she will be traveling the state in the next few weeks and months to highlight the impacts of the law and criticize the GOP members of New York’s House of Representatives delegation who supported it.
“I won’t let them forget," she said. "They will not get away with this. New Yorkers will know who voted callously to disregard the needs of their districts, their constituents, and there are consequences.”
The governor said she's spoken with President Trump about the impact the cuts will have on his former home state.
Hochul brought up an ongoing controversy over the president's reluctance to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which has angered Trump's base. She said while it's not a top issue, it should make the president's supporters question if he'll keep his promises.
"I think it just simply points out, you know, trust from the people that have been supportive of the president, I think there's a trust gap there," she added.
Republicans in Washington and the state continue to defend the federal spending package and argue it avoided a 22% tax hike, increased the child tax credit and created a new tax deduction for tipped or overtime wages.
Republicans also say Democratic leaders in New York got themselves into the state's fiscal hole and should not have passed a bloated $254 billion budget this year — the highest in state history.
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