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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled Tuesday a plan to provide health care for all residents of the city regardless of their ability to pay or their immigrant status.
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The new program, NYC Care, will provide health care to some 600,000 New Yorkers who do not yet have health insurance, according to the mayor's office. Undocumented immigrants will also be included in the plan.
At a press conference held Tuesday at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Mr. de Blasio said that NYC Care would endow New York City with "the country's most comprehensive health system" once implemented.
"We recognized that of course, health care is not a right in theory," Blasio said on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, before the official announcement. "We have to make it a right in practice."
The Mayor stated that the plan would include primary and specialty care as well as maternity and pediatric care and mental health services.
The mental health component is particularly important for Chirlane McCray, the wife of De Blasio, who attacked mental health as the first woman of New York: "Guaranteed health care means guaranteed mental health care," she told the news conference.
McCray explained that NYC Care will put in place a person with a primary health care provider who can refer her to mental health services, including alcohol and drug programs. and therapy sessions.
LightRocket via Getty Images, FILE Of the 600,000 uninsured New Yorkers, many are "young invincible", noted Blasio in "Morning Joe", including youth who can offer insurance but choose not to get it. De Blasio said NYC Care would work on a "sliding scale" in which "people will pay what they can" for care.
He added, "We also have a way to provide direct health care to many of our undocumented neighbors, who are still part of our community, who need health care, their families need health care. "
New York City already has a public option for insurance, but NYC Care will pay "for direct overall care" for people who can not pay for insurance or who are not covered by Medicaid, said Blasio press secretary Eric Phillips on Twitter.
Correct. NYC already has a public option. It is the city that pays for full-service direct care (not just emergencies) for people who can not afford it or who do not have access to full Medicaid – including 300,000 New Yorkers without papers. https://t.co/HfDYmWX1dE
– Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) January 8, 2019
The program comes with a huge cost of $ 100 million a year for the city, but from Blasio said he believes this will ultimately save money in New York.
"If we do not help people get their health care, we will pay a lot of money in case of serious illness," he said in "Morning Joe".
NYC Care will be deployed this summer in the Bronx and will be available to New York residents on the NYC website or by calling 311.
Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.
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