Governor Hochul gave health care surprisingly little attention in her State of the State speech on Tuesday – a sign that taking on dysfunction in one-sixth of the state's economy ranks low on her list of priorities. Read More
Tag: Health Department
After State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett announced her departure, Empire Center's Bill Hammond issued the following statement. Read More
The attorney general's just-filed lawsuit against the Villages of Orleans nursing home has implications that reach far beyond a single facility in western New York. In addition Read More
Although Governor Hochul's long-promised review of New York's COVID response hasn't formally started yet, it has already exposed important information about the state's pandemic preparedness – much of which is unflattering. Read More
In a provocative flex of executive power, the state Health Department is requiring a hospital system to spend $50 million on health care in Brooklyn and Queens if it wants to open an $8.4 million heart transplant center in Manhattan. Read More
Last week, Governor Hochul extended one of her two pandemic-related emergency orders into its ninth month – an action so routine and non-urgent that her office issued no press release. Five days later, an expose in the Times Union showed why casually overusing emergency powers can be a bad idea. Read More
Presented to the Senate Aging Committee May 3, 2022 Read More
A penetrating new audit of the Health Department's pandemic response makes clear that problems at the agency run much deeper than its misreporting of nursing home deaths. Read More