Fair medical debt act would help many in state

Fair medical debt act would help many

Many health crises result in the emotional and physical burden of fear, but this is made exponentially worse when signing off on needed care results in medical debt causing bankruptcy, poor credit or other financially disastrous outcomes. Many Long Islanders choose between medical care and necessities, and they fear the financial impact of accessing care.

The State Legislature recently passed the Fair Medical Debt Reporting Act, a first step in ensuring that people facing burdensome medical bills will not have their credit adversely affected. As the mental health crisis facing New Yorkers continues to be a prominent governing concern, protecting families who courageously access care should be a top priority.

Necessary medical access can often be triggered by an unexpected health calamity. When treatment results in ruined credit, families can face difficulty being housed, higher insurance premiums, difficulty accessing loans and increased destabilization.

Passage of this bill is the first step in reducing the financial health burdens of treating disease or injury. This needs to be signed into law to protect all New Yorkers’ access to medical care.

— Rebecca Sanin, Huntington Station

The writer is chief executive of the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island.

Pride community must stave off foes

Having just finished celebrating Pride Month, we cannot pretend that this year is like any other. We must not lose sight of the fact that the ability to celebrate, hold parades and exist in public is the result of hard-fought protections and a deeper understanding of the importance of LGBTQIA+ rights and protections by the broader public.

It is particularly important that we understand that there is a motivated minority that seeks to roll back these rights and protections and are willing to use violence to do so, if necessary.

We are seeing an unprecedented proliferation of anti-trans bills for young people that seek to eliminate access to gender-affirming care and seeing violence aimed at companies voicing support for this community.

Our work addressing interpersonal violence (domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and human trafficking) is part of a larger effort by many Long Island groups with a shared goal. These issues are symptoms of deeper cultural factors, like misogyny and homophobia.

Dehumanizing and bigoted rhetoric like that deployed against this community always results in increased violence toward that community. You can be sure that this rhetoric is having and will continue to have violent repercussions for the community and require that allies are active in creating safety for this population.

We are committed to creating a society free from violence for all people.

— Joshua Hanson, Bethpage

The writer is executive director of The Safe Center LI.