April 18, 2006

Kaplowitz Convenes Three Board Committees
To Hear Testimony On Proposed
"Fair Share For Healthcare" Legislation

Mike Kaplowitz, Budget & Appropriations Chair	Jose Alvarado, Public Works, Transportation, Parks & Labor Chair	Judy Myers, Families, Health & Human Services Chair

Karen Magee and Duncan McCrae, Westchester-Putnam AFL-CIO Central Labor Union	From left, Patrick Welsh, Chairman, Westchester-Putnam Working Families Party joined by Josh Mason, WFP Policy Director

 

County Legislator Mike Kaplowitz, Chair of the County Board's Budget & Appropriation Committee, was joined by members of the Families, Health & Human Services Committee and the Public Works, Transportation, Labor & Parks Committee to hear testimony on the proposed state bill that would require large employers in New York State to pay the full cost of health benefitis for their employees.

The Committees will meet again on Tuesday, April 25th at 12 noon to discuss and vote on the Fair Share for Healthcare Resolution. Click here for copy of the Resolution

By passing this legislation, New York would be following the likes of Maryland and other states that have taken action on this national hot-button issue. 

“With the anticipated arrival of Wal-Mart in White Plains, the proposed bill is timely,” said Kaplowitz.

The bipartisan state bill is sponsored by Richard Gottfried (D/WFP-Manhattan) and a majority of the State Assembly, and Nicholas Spano (R/WFP-Westchester) in the State Senate, and is backed by a large coalition of businesses, labor unions, and health and consumer groups led by the Working Families Party.

“No employee of a hugely profitable multi-billion dollar company like Wal-Mart or Pizza Hut should be forced to go without medical care or be forced to resort to Medicaid,” said Patrick Welsh, chair of the Westchester-Putnam County chapter of the Working Families Party.

Nearly three million New Yorkers lack any health insurance.  Wal-Mart alone has an estimated 3,000 workers (plus their dependents) enrolled in public health programs such as Medicaid, costing taxpayers more than $20 million, and 10,000 workers with no insurance, costing the public another $10-15 million.

“It is time to shift the cost of healthcare from the taxpayer to the shareholder,” said Kaplowitz.  “Corporate giants such as Wal-Mart should realize that providing healthcare for their employees is simply the cost of doing business.”

County Legislator Thomas J. Abinanti (D-I-WF, Greenburgh), former chair of the County Board’s Health Committee and currently a member of both the Committees on Budget & Appropriations and Family, Health & Human Services, stated that “it should be the responsibility of these big businesses, not the taxpaying public, to bare the cost of health benefits for these workers.” Abinanti strongly supports the bill. 

But not everyone does.  Last week, the Employment Policies Institute - a front group for fast food corporations like McDonald's – launched an attack on the Fair Share for Health Care Act.

“Of course these large companies like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart oppose the bill, they increase their profit margins by skimping on health care coverage for their workers,” Kaplowitz stated.

“Ultimately, this practice imposes great costs on the public.  For example, the rising cost of public health programs, especially Medicaid, is an enormous financial strain on state and county government, and a major cause of the growing property-tax burden."