#Cuomo budget could cut $500M from NYC public hospitals: de Blasio

Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that Gov. Cuomo’s budget proposal would cut nearly $500 million in funding from the city’s public hospital system, potentially forcing City Hall to cut 900 doctors and nurses and close 19 clinics in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those clinics serve 140,000 New Yorkers, predominately in lower-income and minority neighborhoods, de Blasio told lawmakers during his annual testimony on the state’s spending plans.

“We see dangerous cuts,” Hizzoner said.

“It would mean longer wait times for patients,” he added. “We can’t let that happen.”

The state cuts would slash $139 million in state funding from the current 2021 budget and then another $334 million from the upcoming 2022 spending plan, de Blasio said.

Hizzoner made the remarks during his annual testimony before state lawmakers about the impact of Cuomo’s proposed $193 billion budget on the Big Apple.

Cuomo is attempting to close a budget shortfall that he says measures $15 billion over two years.

De Blasio faces his own deficits at City Hall, which his administration estimates exceed $4 billion in 2023.

A budget spokesman for Cuomo accused de Blasio of “picking and choosing reductions without looking at the overall picture” and claimed that a key source of H&H’s funding — from Medicaid — would grow.