By Hank Russell
A think tank says that, if the federal government does not provide funding for a health plan — money, they said, that will go to help keep undocumented migrants covered — the governor will shut down the plan, which will mean over 1 million New Yorkers will lose their coverage.
According to The Empire Center for Public Policy, Governor Kathy Hochul asked the federal government for permission to provide temporary coverage to 525,000 illegal immigrants covered by the Essential Plan. (Undocumented migrants no longer receive federal health coverage under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.)
If the federal government turns down her request, she will shutter the Essential Plan, meaning 1.8 million New Yorkers will have to find other healthcare plans. State officials said the Essential Plan stands to lose $7.6 billion a year once changes in federal health coverage under the bill take effect.
According to the New York State Department of Health, 1,720,756 New Yorkers are currently enrolled in the Essential Plan. Of that, 107,977 Nassau County residents are on the plan, while Suffolk has 123,320 enrollees.
Despite the governor’s desire to keep illegal immigrants in the plan, among the Essential Plan’s requirements are that the recipient be a New York State resident and “lawfully present in the U.S.”
Governor Hochul is hingeing a big chunk of her budget — and the state’s health-care system — on a politically fraught gambit: asking the Trump administration to help cover immigrants,” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s senior fellow for health policy.
Citing data from the New York State Budget Division, the state is expected to receive approximately $14.2 billion in federal Essential Plan funding for Fiscal Year 2026, but that amount would drop to more than $3.3 billion in FY 2027 and no federal funding for the next three fiscal years (2028-2030).
Further, the state intends to spend nealy $14.6 billion on the plan in FY26, but than that decreases to $3.7 billion the next fiscal years and $390 million for the next three years after that.
Hammond said Hochul offers no mathematical proof that the state “cannot afford” to operate the current version of the Essential Plan, yet she proposed scaling back the income requirements from 250% to 200% of the poverty level — thereby removing 450,000 New Yorkers from the rolls — and “confusingly” allocated $6.4 billion for the plan, “which appears to be roughly what it would cost to run if federal officials approve the state’s requested changes,” Hammons said. “Ironically, it’s citizens, not immigrants, who have the most to lose.”
The governor “can try to blame Washington,” Hammond said, but he pointed out that she boasted that “cash reserves have surged to all-time highs,” adding, “If the state is not willing to fill budget holes in the Essential Plan, it’s not clear why the federal government, which is running trillion-dollar deficits, should do so instead.”
Hammond said there is “a case to be made” for eliminating the Essential Plan, citing the diversion of “hundreds of thousands of potential customers from the state’s commercial insurance market, weakening the risk pool and driving up premiums for those who don’t qualify for subsidies.”
On the other hand, “hundreds of thousands [of] enrollees signed up in good faith. If Hochul truly intends to take away that coverage barely five months from now, she owes them fair warning – and a much clearer explanation of why her decision is necessary.”
Long Island Life & Politics reached out to Hochul’s office, but did not hear back as of press time.