Hochul: We’ll Lose Money Under GOP Bill, ‘Don’t Want to Go’ to Cutting Services for Migrants

During an interview with Telemundo 47 on Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) argued that the state is going to lose money under the Republican tax and spending bill and people will lose health care and responded to if she’ll have to cut services to some immigrants by saying, “I don’t want to go there.” And “This is something we have to look at very seriously for how we can not leave these people without essential care.”

Hochul said that “no state will be able to make up those kind of cuts. We just don’t have enough money. And so people are going to be losing their health care, they’re going to be losing care that we provide for members of the undocumented community. I signed into law that we would take care of people over age 65 and people that have a new baby, moms for the first year, because I thought it was the right thing to do to take care of members of our undocumented community as well. They cut all of that money. They cut any assistance that we can provide for them, but also families that have been here, and especially people in nursing homes, that’s going to be hard. Most of the money for Medicaid is spent in nursing homes, taking care of our senior citizens who you can’t take care of at home anymore. So this is the real impact of this.”

Host Alejandro Mendoza then asked, “Could we see something like we have seen in California where the governor had to cut services to some immigrants?”

Hochul responded, “I don’t want to go there. This is money that’s now been lost by the federal government — they used to help us pay for this. This is something we have to look at very seriously for how we can not leave these people without essential care. And that’s going to be a tough decision, but, as I said, I made sure our state law, which we are funding, covers senior citizens and new moms and their babies.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett