Health Care

Click here to download a PDF of Bill's full health care plan, "A New Direction For a Healthier New York."


Leading The Way to Increase All New Yorkers' Access to Quality, Affordable Healthcare


Bill Thompson believes that all New Yorkers have a fundamental right to quality, affordable healthcare. The rising of costs of healthcare and the rapidly decreasing access to healthcare services, is literally a life and death matter for thousands of New Yorkers. The financial burden alone tears families apart and decreases the city’s long-term economic viability.


As Comptroller, Bill Thompson:

  • Recommended the state streamline enrollment requirements for publicly-funded health insurance such as Child Health Plus, Family Health Plus, and Medicaid after finding that 900,000 uninsured New York City residents are eligible for the plans, but get tangled up in the complicated and redundant enrollment requirements and lack of accessibility for non-English-speakers.
  • Called for a multi-pronged approach to reducing income-based healthcare disparities, including partnerships between the Health and Hospitals Corporation and retail clinics, increasing physical education in schools, and reducing asthma triggers.
  • Recommended the State make alterations to Medicaid reimbursement rate structure and take other steps to provide more preventive and primary care to relieve overcrowding in our emergency rooms, reforms the Governor eventually agreed to undertake.
  • Urged new communication assistance regulations be implemented for all hospitals in New York State after finding that New Yorkers whose primary language is not English encountered significant barriers navigating the city’s health system, with nearly 75 percent of hospitals failing to provide Spanish-language services in one or more departments.
  • Called for the New York State Department of Health to step up enforcement of mandatory reporting of medical “adverse events” that result in longer hospital stays and higher costs to the healthcare system, having found that many New York City Hospitals substantially underreport such “adverse events.”
  • Joined employees and community members in protesting the closures of Mary the Immaculate and St. John’s Hospitals in Queens, expressing concerns about the state’s failure to meet Queens residents’ healthcare needs and disclose transition plans for the 911 emergency medical response and treatment service.
  • Established greater access to provider education and outreach for diabetes patients in the hardest hit neighborhoods, making sure every patient gets the same level of attention and quality care.