Sunday, April 20, 2025
It’s that time of year again, when New Yorkers who pay the highest combined tax burden in the nation have to beg Albany to return money to their communities. With the start of another state budget season comes yet another attack on Nassau County’s most vulnerable. In what has become an all too familiar refrain, the state’s latest $252 billion budget — up $8.6 billion from last year — has been proposed without even $1 for Nassau County’s only public safety-net hospital.
Like Andrew Cuomo before her, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s latest budget proposal continues to systemically and inexplicably cut off state support for Nassau University Medical Center, down from $180 million in aid in 2017 to $0 in 2024. Despite NUMC’s operating as a safety-net hospital for hundreds of thousands of patients annually, Albany persists in denying our patients, providers and community funds to which they are legally entitled.
But it’s even worse than it sounds. Why? Because recent reforms at the hospital have put it in the best financial position it has been in years, meaning we’re asking for less money, not more, to cover gaps in revenue due to our mission to cover those who can’t pay for services. Albany’s answer is zero dollars.
It’s not that New York state doesn’t have the money. Since 2020, the governor has announced significant funding for numerous medical institutions. Westchester Medical Center has received over $160 million in state taxpayer funding since 2019. SUNY Downstate Medical Center — whose CEO recently resigned amid allegations of misconduct — is slated to receive nearly $1 billion in the latest budget. In contrast, NUMC, which has demonstrated improvement in its financial position and expansion of services, continues to be denied funds.
In 2024, NUMC applied for six different grants from the state. None were awarded. This isn’t due to a lack of effort, merit or demonstrated need. Instead, it reflects what appears to be a troubling power play by Hochul and her allies. Through her surrogates, the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority — led by people with no health care management or hospital finance experience — and the state Department of Health, Albany has repeatedly ignored significant management, operational and fiscal reforms at the hospital and spread a message to the public that NUMC is failing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It gets even worse. A comprehensive audit last year revealed that the state has forced NUMC to operate at a disadvantage for nearly two decades. In what amounts to the state’s biggest shell game in history, it has been systemically violating federal law to shortchange the hospital’s Medicaid payments by 50 percent. Our recently filed lawsuit seeks to end this corruption and ensure that Nassau’s most at-risk residents get every dollar they deserve. Perhaps we struck a nerve.
By state statute, NUMC has an obligation to treat every patient, regardless of their ability to pay. It’s a mission that sets us apart, and one we take on every day with passion. The consequences of Albany’s neglect are far-reaching. Without Medicaid funding or grants, we are limited in our ability to improve infrastructure, expand services, and recruit the best talent necessary to meet our community’s needs.
Over the coming months, NUMC’s leadership, physicians and staff will be pressing our case to legislators — both here in the Nassau community and in Albany — urging them to deliver for our hospital and its patients, so that we can thrive. It’s our sincere hope that our legislators will take up our cause, both in their respective one-house budgets and in the final enacted budget.
Hochul and our legislators should put our patients over power politics. The state budget is ballooning, and forcing our patients and staff to fight some kind of Hunger Games to get health care aid is disgraceful when it is being doled out by the truckload elsewhere. The NUMC community deserves to be treated with respect from its government, not maligned in the media by political gadflies and needlessly threatened by attorneys and bureaucrats.
This is about more than dollars and cents — it’s about safeguarding the health and well-being of our community. It’s about fairness. It is imperative that state leaders include NUMC in this year’s budget to secure a healthier future for all of Nassau County.
Megan C. Ryan is president, CEO and chief legal officer of the Nassau Health Care Corporation and Nassau University Medical Center.
