Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled a range of health care proposals on Tuesday that focus on ramping up treatment for people with severe mental illnesses, safeguarding abortion care and targeting high drug costs.
Hochul introduced new health care policies as a part of her State of the State address on Tuesday, which largely focused on populist issues such as public safety and affordability. The governor’s health care proposals align with that agenda, emphasizing measures that place people with mental illnesses into treatment, target rising health care costs and improve access to essential services and medications.
Although the governor outlined her policy proposals for the upcoming year, details about the funding for those proposals will be released in her executive budget later this month. Here are a few of Hochul’s planned health care policies.
More involuntary commitments for severe mental illness
Hochul renewed her promise to propose a law that will make it easier for clinicians to involuntarily hospitalize people with severe mental illness, aiming to address a series of violent crimes on city streets and in the subways last year that raised concerns about public safety. The governor will introduce a change to state mental health law to update legal criteria for involuntary hospitalization, allowing clinicians and other authorized personnel to intervene when an individual is “at substantial risk of physical harm to themselves or others” because of their inability to meet basic needs such as food, shelter and medical care, which she said will align New York with policies in other states. She also proposed to allow psychiatric nurse practitioners to involuntarily commit people to psychiatric facilities, expanding the types of clinicians who have the authority to do so.
Advocates have pushed back against expansions of involuntary commitment laws, stating that forced treatment is a violation of human rights and does not provide people with comprehensive care. But elected officials including Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams have called to extend the rules to get more people into what they say is necessary treatment.
“Critics will say this criminalizes poverty or homelessness. I say that is flat-out wrong,” Hochul said.
Hochul also announced plans to expand Kendra’s law, a 1999 state law that allows for court-ordered mental health treatment in community settings.
Bolstering reproductive health access
The governor also unveiled a slate of abortion policies to improve access to reproductive health care as President Donald Trump prepares to take office. The governor pledged to distribute $25 million from the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Grant Fund, a state fund set aside for providers that offer abortion care. She also proposed to designate $20 million to raise reimbursements for abortion providers and allocated money for capital improvements.
Hochul also unveiled policies to protect abortion providers from harassment and persecution. She plans to introduce a law that would allow clinicians who prescribe the abortion pill to keep their names hidden on prescription labels, a proposal designed to protect them if they prescribe the pill to patients in states that restrict the procedure.
Expanding safety-net support, tackling drug prices
Amid continued financial challenges for hospitals and rising medical costs for patients, Hochul proposed to aid cash-strapped medical facilities and improve access to health care services. She plans to expand a hospital initiative called the safety-net transformation program, which launched last year to offer struggling community hospitals funding and partnerships with bigger systems to stay afloat. Demand for the program far exceeded available funding in its first year, and the governor plans to allocate additional resources in her upcoming budget, according to her policy agenda.
The governor will also focus on tackling rising drug costs. She plans to direct the Health Department to evaluate access to weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic among Medicaid enrollees with cardiovascular health issues and will join other states to pressure the companies to bring down their prices. New York will also seek to participate in a program sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that allows states to request to import lower-cost drugs from Canada, the governor said.
Hochul also plans to unveil new laws this year to require greater transparency from pharmacy benefit managers which are middlemen companies that negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and insurers. The governor pledged to introduce a “nation-leading” legislation to hold companies accountable for hidden or unnecessary costs that can inflate drug prices, but did not offer specific details on the effort. The laws are expected to add to state regulations enacted late last year to target aggressive behaviors by pharmacy benefit managers.
