Commissioner Martin opening testimony on DOHMH priorities and federal threats
Commissioner Martin testifies on the DOHMH executive budget, framing public health as an affordability issue. He discusses federal cuts to Medicaid, the department's three priorities—core services, affordability, and making public health visible—and highlights investments in perinatal mental health, asthma, and peer workers.
Fantastic.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Chair Lee.
Thank you, Chair Kavan, and thank you, Madam Speaker, and to all of the council members who've joined us today.
My name is Dr.
Alistair Martin, Commissioner of Health at the New York City Health Department, and I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Aaron Anderson, and members of my senior leadership team.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on our executive budget as it relates to public health.
In the midst of this year's budget season, City Hall released a study that found 62% of New Yorkers cannot meet their basic needs.
That's 5 million people, most of whom are missed by federal poverty measures.
This budget season, the Mamdani administration is putting forward a blueprint for how to care for our city and lift some of the financial weight from New Yorkers'shoulders.
We can't talk about affordability without talking about health.
We're facing devastating cuts to public health and health care at the federal level, and we're bracing for the impacts of H.R.
1.
Millions of New Yorkers who rely on Medicaid will soon become vulnerable to losing their coverage.
That impacts nearly half of our city.
We have both a responsibility and an opportunity to intervene.
Our mission for the Health Department is centered around three main priorities.
The first is to solidify the foundation of our core public and mental health work.
As we face an increasingly hostile federal environment, we are dedicated to ensuring our core local services are operating.
efficiently.
The second is to make clear that public health is an affordability issue.
Key components of this work include enrolling New Yorkers in Medicaid and keeping them covered, especially the hundreds of thousands of residents at risk under new federal work requirements.
Connecting families to cash assistance benefit programs like SNAP, WIC, EITC, and other benefits they've already earned but haven't claimed,
eliminating medical debt both by erasing it once it accrues and preventing it once before it accumulates.
And screening for housing instability at health visits and linking patients to eviction prevention services.
The third priority is to make public health's invisible shield visible.
Because that metaphor does us a disservice.
If something is hidden, it's easy to take for granted.
We cannot afford to be taken for granted.
Especially not right now.
We are building a healthier, more affordable New York City every single day.
In the past three months alone, we've made extraordinary commitments to deliver for New Yorkers.
That includes a $20 million investment in perinatal and early childhood mental health services,
as well as expansion of our nurse family partnership program, a program in which my own mother was a nurse, as a nurse family partnership nurse.
Another $20 million towards community-based asthma programming in the Bronx.
A $12 million investment in the peer worker.
at substance use recovery programs across New York City, and a Board of Health resolution condemning federal tax on public health insurance and resolving to fight back.
Each of these is both an accomplishment and also a promise of more to come.
I'm proud to share them with you today.