Health

Health is more than just healthcare. Kathryn will fight for the building blocks of a healthy, livable, and equitable city.

To address long-standing inequity and racial disparities in health outcomes that have been exacerbated by COVID-19, we need to systematically improve the conditions in which people live, work, and learn.

That means affordable housing, quality jobs, and clean air — but also improving access to regular, affordable healthcare. A healthy city is one where all New Yorkers get the care they need, when they need it.

Kathryn’s holistic approach will ensure that no New Yorker has to delay needed care due to cost or accessibility. Many of the highest need community districts are also health care deserts, lacking in healthcare facilities and professionals. We will work to close the coverage gap and expand telehealth and community-based approaches to bring care closer to you.

Every day, New Yorkers navigating healthcare and social services experience frustration and bureaucracy. We will take every step to improve this experience, because better access means better outcomes. Our plan will invest in coordinated systems and faster, easier benefits access that help residents stay connected to the services they need.

From targeted investments in mental health, a focus on the seriously mentally ill and young people, and proven community-based approaches to close the maternal mortality gap, we will prioritize dignity in care for all.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Reduce wait times for appointments for primary care to less than 10 days
  • Bring health care closer to your home with coordinated care teams and telehealth
  • Expand late night and weekend healthcare services
  • Improve coordination across public and private healthcare systems
  • Make claiming benefits and navigating services the fastest, easiest, and most people-centered in the country
  • Rebuild our relationship with public health experts and restore trust in our healthcare system
  • Close the maternal mortality gap
  • Expand healthcare infrastructure in historically underserved neighborhoods
  • Increase mental health services for our youth and educators
  • Reduce response times for mobile crisis teams and better serve New Yorkers living with serious mental illness
  • Enroll 100% of eligible New Yorkers for SNAP benefits
  • Shorten the commute to buy or pick up healthy food
  • Make school meals more exciting and delightful

Leave no New Yorker without access to affordable, quality care

  • Reduce wait times so that every New Yorker can get a primary care appointment within one week and critical specialty care within 10 days, by focusing on operational efficiency and innovation.
  • Bring healthcare closer to your home by deploying coordinated mobile care teams focused on primary care, behavioral health, and social care that come to you, and expanding H+H virtual care and telehealth services that you can use from the comfort of your home.
  • Expand transit options to make it easier to get to your neighborhood healthcare center. That means permanent access like new bus routes--not vouchers for taxis.
  • Increase funding to expand healthcare infrastructure in the outer boroughs and emergency room facilities in Staten Island, to close critical shortages in primary care, emergency services, and maintain inpatient capacity.
  • Expand after hours care at community healthcare sites. New York is a 24/7 city and we need 24/7 access to quality health care.
  • Close the coverage gap by enrolling all eligible New Yorkers in Medicaid, advocating for permanent expansion of health insurance subsidies, and expanding low-cost care through NYC Care.
  • Expand school-based health centers in public school buildings. SBHCs keep students in school, encourage better academic performance and graduation rates, improve health outcomes and reduce care disparities for students of color and undocumented students.
  • Address cultural and language competency challenges for accessing healthcare services. That means cultural competence training for staff in all outreach positions, and 100% availability of translation services for all medical providers in New York City.
  • Support healthy aging in place with more robust services at Naturally Occuring Retirement Communities (NORCs), home visiting programs, and nutrition programs for older adults. A third of NYC seniors live alone; social support and programming is especially vital to their physical and mental health. Expand efforts to provide tablets to seniors that live alone and invest in organizations like OATS that help seniors access and use technology.

Create a unified and coordinated citywide healthcare system, leveraging both our critical public hospitals and private healthcare providers

  • Coordinate planning, policies, and data-sharing across H+H facilities and private systems to create a more responsive, resilient, and patient-centered system. We did this in COVID, we can do this after COVID. Private hospitals need a public system and vice versa.
  • Our public healthcare system must deliver high quality, culturally responsive care. Deliver quality and value through prevention, care management, and innovation
  • Secure the future of our public health system by advocating at the State level for equitable distribution of funds (including the Indigent Care Pool) and better reimbursement for Medicaid patients and psychiatric care, who rely heavily on H+H services.
  • Leverage the strengths and footprint of both H+H and private healthcare systems to meet community needs and expand access faster.
  • Strengthen community benefit requirements for non-profit hospitals to better serve all New Yorkers and minimize further disruptions in community access to care.
  • Strengthen the pipeline of nursing and healthcare staff to close workforce shortages, including leveraging the CUNY system to recruit more New Yorkers to train for medical system jobs. We must have a culturally diverse health system workforce.

Make it easier to access benefits and services

  • Make understanding and claiming benefits the easiest, fastest, and most people-centered process in the country. Navigating healthcare, housing, and employment services shouldn’t be daunting.
  • Partner with and fund community-based organizations that provide a trusted source of health information, resources, and services through community health workers.
  • Pass legislation that prevents surprise hospital bills, makes bills easier to navigate, and provides financial aid for low income patients. Advocate for the Patient Medical Debt Protection Act which would require hospital bills to be consolidated into a single bill and presented in plain language, shrink the window for hospitals to sue patients from six years to two years, prevent out of network surprise bills, and create financial aid for low income patients.
  • Open Overdose Prevention Centers to expand on the City’s harm reduction approach, prevent overdose deaths, and reduce public drug use.

Close the maternal mortality gap

  • Urgently expand pre-and-post natal community health worker and outreach programs to specifically focus on black mothers. In New York City, black women are estimated to be up to 8-12 times more likely to die from a pregnancy related complication than white women.
  • Expand hospital-based midwifery services in public and private facilities, in accordance with recommendations by the DOHMH Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Committee. NYC families should have access to the same care options offered in countries with the lowest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. Expand education efforts to ensure families understand midwifery scope of practice and ensure midwives are supported to practice to the full extent of their licenses.
  • Expand doula programs. Families need a dedicated advocate to look out for their needs and support them to voice any concerns to the healthcare team. Doulas can help coordinate this communication to help ensure these needs are met. Expand education so that families understand the role of a doula and feel empowered to advocate for themselves.
  • Focus expansion of home visiting programs to communities with the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, promote best practices and safety standards across public and private systems.
  • Work with medical care providers to aggressively combat implicit and explicit bias by engaging in training focused on the application of principles in respectful care, anti-racism, birth equity and reproductive justice, paying special attention to the history of inequitable outcomes here in New York City.
  • Implement innovative payment models to support women and children in early years of life, in alignment with State and Federal policy reform.
  • Require comprehensive sexuality education in grades K-12 and provide teens with access to confidential reproductive health care services, including contraception
  • Expand Paid Family Leave with a specific focus on birth mothers that experience co-morbidities during pregnancy or postpartum, who are at the highest risk.
  • Expand career pathways for midwives by advocating with the state to build a SUNY Midwifery scholarship program to attract students of color committed to working with vulnerable communities after graduating.

Address the growing mental health crisis with compassion and urgency

  • Embed mental health resources in schools to provide social-emotional support and connect students to the care they need. More than 4,000 students have lost a parent to COVID-19. Mental health will be one of the most important areas of focus to ensure students with interrupted education can get back on track to succeed.
  • Make mental health services, particularly virtual mental health services, more accessible and work to expand insurance coverage to include mental health needs.
  • Close disparities in access to mental health care by leveraging and promoting telehealth. Maximize reimbursement for integrated services in community-based settings and advocate for better payment for mental health services.
  • There is no one size fits all approach for mental health. We will expand and invest in proven community-based approaches to help New Yorkers living with serious mental illness, including Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams, intensive outpatient approaches and Kendra’s Law / Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT).
  • Increase inpatient psychiatric bed capacity to ensure that shelters and jails are not the only available source of treatment and care.
  • Intervene in mental health crises before they require police involvement. Reduce response times for mobile crisis teams to provide stabilization when it is most needed, and connect teams to options beyond 911 when follow-up is needed.
  • Embed qualified professionals focused on mental health alongside police officers who are responding to 911 calls to help address non-violent situations.

Enroll 100% of eligible NYers for SNAP benefits

  • Work with CBOs to reverse the troubling trend of eligible non-citizens withdrawing from or not enrolling in SNAP. Expand outreach and ensure CBOs have the training and resources to complete telephonic enrollment to eliminate every barrier to enroll.
  • Complete proactive outreach to thousands of New Yorkers who may be eligible, including NYers who requested and received emergency home delivered meals or picked up meals at their local school. Identify opportunities for social services agencies to collaborate on benefits enrollment.
  • Eliminate repetitive, time-consuming, and convoluted benefit application processes. New Yorkers should be able to apply for or recertify eligibility for SNAP benefits by telephone or on a smartphone.
  • Expand online delivery and the Health Bucks program to make SNAP benefits more convenient to use. Every penny paid by the federal government through SNAP can and should boost our local food businesses and regional agriculture.
  • Hold social services agencies accountable to publicly report on SNAP eligibility estimates and closing the gap. Streamline bureaucracy to more effectively manage the existing caseload and re-allocate resources to grow SNAP participation.

Make the healthiest, most nutritious option the easiest option in every community

  • Shorten the commute to buy or pick up healthy food. Invest dollars to incentivize and develop infrastructure (senior centers, grocery stores, pantries, community-based models) in underserved neighborhoods.
  • Make school meals exciting and delightful by continuing to improve the offerings for students and families at DOE, including universal Halal options, and making structural changes to school cafeterias to make them more welcoming and accessible.
  • Fund fresh and culturally relevant food—not just canned goods--for food pantries. Increase funding to support food programs, with a focus on funding equity for all New Yorkers that experience food insecurity: older adults, families, undocumented NYers, students, people experiencing homelessness, veterans and others.
  • Make it cheaper to buy a nutritious meal in your community. Subsidize meals at community restaurants to ensure nutritious food is at a competitive price point with junk food.
  • Support and grow urban agriculture, from rooftop gardens and hydroponic systems to schoolyard green spaces and production farms, to grow opportunities for green infrastructure, green jobs, stewardship and education.
  • Construct the GrowNYC Regional Food Hub and encourage regional adoption of the Good Food Purchasing program.

Health x Climate

  • More than ever, New Yorkers realized the value of our parks and open spaces as our cultural institutions were closed and we had to practice social distancing. Open green space is one of the City’s most valuable environmental assets but also contributes to the well-being of our residents and our economy. We can win the war against asphalt and asthma and make NYC a green oasis. Learn more >
  • Nurture the life sciences industry in New York City to create well-paying jobs, spur local scientific discoveries, and encourage entrepreneurship in this growing industry.
  • Learn more here.

Media Coverage

POLITICO

"With an estimated two million New Yorkers struggling to afford enough food, mayoral hopeful Kathryn Garcia is releasing a health plan that aims to get New Yorkers access to primary care doctors and mental health support — but also get their hands on healthy food."

AMNY

"We need to save our mothers’: Mayoral hopeful Garcia outlines plan to boost healthcare for NYC women. Kathryn Garcia, mayoral candidate and former Commissioner for the New York City Sanitation Department, pledged to make boosting women’s healthcare rights a key goal if elected to the city’s highest office."

DAILY NEWS

"Mayoral contender Kathryn Garcia rolled out several health policy proposals ... aimed at bridging disparities that have had a negative impact on people of color throughout New York City... [Garcia] wants to enroll all eligible city residents in Medicaid and food stamps, reduce wait times for primary care physician appointments to a week at most and drastically cut the number of mothers who die during pregnancy — a problem that’s most acutely felt among black women."

CITY LIMITS

“Before quitting to run for mayor, Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia also oversaw the effort to provide meals to New Yorkers whom COVID-19 exposed to the risk of malnutrition. Her food plan... aims for the lofty goal of getting 100 percent of people who are eligible for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits signed up for them, and promises to make enrolling in those and other benefit programs easier.”

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