President Bush's new budget proposes cutting $200 billion in funding for healthcare over the next five years. Here in our region our already fragile hospitals, nursing homes and home care providers will see massive cuts that will severely threaten their ability to deliver quality care.

If Congress doesn't reject Bush's budget, New York's hospitals would see cuts of $1 billion this year and $10 billion over five years – with the worst cuts falling on our State's world-class teaching hospitals and those hospitals that provide care to the poor and uninsured. The cuts will result in layoffs of critical staff, reductions in services… even closures.