Laws to analyze the COVID-19 nursing house insurance policies of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is being stalled by Albany Democrats, in accordance with the invoice's co-sponsors.
AP Photograph/Seth Wenig
Bipartisan laws to analyze the affect of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic insurance policies on the nursing-home dying toll from COVID-19 is being bottled up in committee so main lawmakers received’t be implicated within the scandal, sponsors of the measures informed The Submit on Monday.
“There’s no query in my thoughts that they wish to maintain this up,” mentioned state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady).
“I feel it touches on them. And it touches on what they’ve finished thus far.”
Tedisco famous that the Democrats who management each chambers of the Legislature “by no means used one subpoena at a listening to” and allowed former Well being Commissioner Howard Zucker to “dance round all day” when he was grilled in regards to the state’s cover-up of the nursing house deaths.
Tedisco additionally urged that delaying his invoice was a bid to cowl up for Cuomo, who resigned beneath menace of impeachment final 12 months over allegations of sexual harassment.
“They needed to do away with him as a result of he was a legal responsibility however I’m undecided additionally they wish to let all people know the extent of the issues that he was concerned with that prompted this lack of life — the lies, the distortions,” he mentioned.
Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), who’s sponsoring a companion invoice, mentioned high-ranking Democrats have been “simply arising with excuse after excuse.”
“At completely different instances, they're giving me excuses about ‘Oh, there’s federal investigations, we will’t open this up till the federal investigation is full.'”
However Kim, whose uncle died in a nursing house of suspected COVID-19, mentioned he remained hopeful the measures would win approval earlier than the scheduled June 2 finish of the legislative session.
“This isn't a giant ask. We're simply asking to return and examine,” he mentioned.
The plan would create a five-member fee with subpoena energy and a wide-ranging mandate to probe issues that embody “any improve in dying charges of nursing house residents attributable to COVID-19.”
The blue-ribbon panel of consultants “in well being care and/or well being coverage” would additionally need to report inside one 12 months of its first assembly.
Fox Information senior meteorologist Janice Dean, whose in-laws each died of COVID-19 in nursing houses, mentioned, “When a hurricane or a blizzard hits New York, there may be all the time an after-action overview carried out to try to be taught from what occurred.”
“Why aren’t we doing the identical for over 15,000 seniors that have been taken from us?” she mentioned.
“If lawmakers don’t take a tough take a look at what occurred and why our leaders tried so laborious to cowl it up, they are going to all have blood on their palms.”
Critics have accused Cuomo’s administration of fueling the nursing house dying toll by initially forcing amenities to simply accept “medically steady” COVID-19 sufferers discharged from hospitals.
In March, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli additionally mentioned an audit discovered that the Division of Well being deliberately “misled the general public” by omitting at the least 4,100 hospital deaths from its tally of nursing house fatalities.
As of April 30, the official COVID-19 dying toll of nursing house residents was 15,438, in accordance with the DOH.
A spokesman for state Senate Majority Chief Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) mentioned that Tedisco’s invoice “moved by” the Well being Committee to the Finance Committee final week “and we proceed to debate.”
A consultant for Meeting Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) didn’t return a request for remark.
However a spokesperson mentioned Gov. Kathy Hochul “has instituted a number of crucial insurance policies to guard nursing house residents from COVID-19, together with rising entry to boosters, bolstering staffing with medically-trained Nationwide Guard, requiring high-quality masks and testing for guests and offering entry to [personal protective equipment].”
“On the governor’s path, our administration has been exploring a pandemic response overview, and we'll proceed working with the legislature and advocates on these priorities,” spokesperson Hazel Crampton-Hays added.
Of the laws, Cuomo spokesman Wealthy Azzopardi snarked, “Essentially the most harmful place in America is between Jim Tedisco and a microphone. All politics, no disgrace. “
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