Keeping Up the Fight to Close to Close Healthcare Funding Gaps

On March 6th, CWA Locals 1122, 1133, and 1168 joined a huge coalition of unions and community groups in Western New York to hold a press conference calling on the State Legislature to include money in the NYS budget to address funding cuts impacting our communities.

“Medicaid cuts are directly worsening short staffing in our facilities,” said Brian Magner, RN and President of CWA Local 1133. “When positions go unfilled and workloads grow, patients wait longer, complications increase, and lives are put at risk. We are calling on New York State to increase Medicaid funding in this year’s budget to protect safe staffing and patient care.”

CWAers didn’t stop there — on March 23, Locals 1122, 1133, and 1168 again teamed up with our union family at 1199SEIU and NYS Assemblymember Jon Rivera to demand that the State do all that it can to bridge the gap left by federal funding cuts and make sure that our healthcare centers get what they need to keep services running.

AM Rivera is urging fellow legislators to pass the Reinvest in New York Health Care Act, which would put a 9.63% tax on profits that insurance companies take out of state, which would be redirected into patient care. He’s also fighting alongside CWA to fix our broken tax system to make sure that the richest New Yorkers — those making over $5 million a year and who received federal tax cuts through the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” — pay their fair share to ensure that our healthcare facilities get the funding they need.

“We are no longer going to prioritize the financial benefit to a handful of super wealthy people, just so that people that are struggling can struggle all the more," AM Rivera said at the March 23 press conference.

You can help! Send an email to your NYS Assemblymember and Senator to tell them that we need to restore $500 million in funding cuts to make sure that financially struggling hospitals get the care that they need!