New York City is the center of the coronavirus crisis right now, and many people say they are impressed by the way N.Y.’s Democratic Party governor, Andrew Cuomo, seems to be handling the situation. Unlike Trump, he doesn’t minimize the dangers of the virus, and has been blunt about Trump’s failure to quickly send N.Y. hospitals the healthcare equipment they need.
But when Governor Cuomo talks about the overload on New York’s medical system, he doesn’t mention how during his twelve years in office he has ruthlessly cut the budget for healthcare, reducing hospital beds in New York State from 72,000 to 50,000. Even now, Cuomo proposes a savage cut of $2.5 billion from the state’s budget for Medicaid. This move will trigger corresponding cuts to federal funding. The politicians of both political parties point fingers at each other to avoid accountability for the budget cuts they’ve all enforced – policies that have brought us to the crisis we are experiencing today.
Featured image credit: New York National Guard, licensed under CC-BY-ND 2.0
