February 21, 2020

CLICK HERE for President Fred Kowal's Feb. 21 testimony to the MRT II

CLICK HERE for UUP's media release on President Kowal's Feb. 21 testimony to the MRT II

UUP President Fred Kowal's message to the state’s Medicaid Redesign Team II was straightforward: Don’t cut Medicaid funding to SUNY’s teaching hospitals and medical schools.

“The SUNY hospitals exist for two reasons: to provide a public good and care for the most vulnerable New Yorkers; and two, to train the next generation of doctors and health care providers at a time when New York and the rest of the country are on the precipice of a doctor shortage crisis,” Kowal said.

Kowal was one of the dozens of speakers who appeared before a panel of five MRT II members at a Feb. 21 public hearing in Albany about the mission of MRT - a panel appointed by the governor to identify $2.5 billion in cuts to the state’s Medicaid program.

UUP’s president explained that SUNY’s state-operated hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse treat more than 1.3 million patients each year—many of them Medicaid recipients that depend on the hospitals for primary care services.

The hospitals also subsidize their medical schools, which graduate thousands of doctors and medical professionals each year.

“New York State must not walk away from its responsibility to ensure that every citizen has access to quality medical care, nor should it walk away from its responsibility to train the next generation of doctors and medical professionals,” Kowal said.

Medical schools matter

The medical school at Brooklyn’s SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University serves as a pipeline of doctors and medical professionals to New York City. More than 60 percent of Downstate’s medical school students are students of color. The College of Medicine ranks in the 96th percentile when it comes to graduating African American students.

Stony Brook University’s medical school trains more than 500 medical students and more than 750 residents and fellows annually. More than 60 percent of its students are from New York State, and nearly half of graduates are placed in residencies in the state.

Eighty percent of Upstate Medical University’s Class of 2024 are state residents; 26 percent of the class is made up of people of color. Students from New York make up the majority of students at the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

UUP is advocating for the creation of the Medical Educational Opportunity Program, which would help underrepresented SUNY undergraduate students enter and graduate from a SUNY medical school. The MEOP, part of UUP’s NY25 plan, which would provide medical school preparation assistance, financial support and professional mentoring to students.