Coupled with the fraudulent death reporting and sexual harassment, the New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is surrounded by political funding problems.
By misusing his powers, this time, Andrew Cuomo is trying to help his biggest political donor from the coronavirus liability, as more than 15,000 nursing home residents died from COVID-19.
As the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) tried to get an advantage from Cuomo’s office, the matter is getting worse.
The Cuomo-GNYHA mafia is also trying to blackmail those questioning their ambitions as a Democratic lawmaker is facing threats for questioning the death of constituents and family members under Cuomo’s nursing home facilities.
A CEO of the New York Hospitals has also jumped in to help Governor Cuomo, as things are getting worse.
Cuomo-Gate Crisis: The Latest Crisis for Governor
Recently, the New York Governor bragged about New York ranking 34th in per capita nursing home deaths.
Governor Cuomo allowed nursing homes to take COVID-19 patients while many at-risk elderly citizens were still residing in these care facilities.
This step made these elderly citizens vulnerable, and as a result, more than 20,000 of them died in the hospital and nursing homes.
Two other states adopted this mandate as well, but they immediately rolled back when the death toll started to rise.
However, New York struck with this policy, and therefore, the Cuomo administration is directly responsible for the death of these people.
This came to be known as the Cuomo-gate and is right now the biggest political scandal of the United States that took thousands of lives.
Money, not Lives: Cuomo-GNYHA’s Mantra
The lobbying of Cuomo and the GNYHA to get the monetary advantage by playing on people’s lives is far beyond saneness. The alliance played in a way to maximize their profit without considering the stakes of the patients, at times when their lives were at stake.
For many years GNYHA has been taking a large share of the state budget, and Governor Andrew Cuomo made sure that all of this does not stop.
During the Democratic Primary last year, Governor Cuomo was in a donation crisis, and the GNYHA made Cuomo’s survival possible. The hospital and nursing home organization donated a total of $1 million to his campaign funding.
This time, the governor paid them back by increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates, which will cost the state roughly $140 million per year.
This raise has not only increased the powers of hospital and nursing home organizations but has also eclipsed real estate as the most powerful lobby in New York.
GNYHA collects millions of dollars from hospitals and funnels them back to the politicians through campaign donations. And this is what exactly they did with Cuomo’s campaign.
This dangerous lobbying cost thousands of people’s lives as the state adjusted COVID-19 patients in the nursing homes where the at-risk population was already residing.
Cuomo-GNYHA Lobby to Escape the Crisis
Despite the warning of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the entrance of coronavirus into the eldercare facilities would trigger the crisis, Governor Cuomo let the nursing homes accept COVID patients.
This triggered the crisis, owing to the contagious nature of the disease. Many nursing organizations protested the policy, but their cries went unheeded.
Additionally, State’s Health Commissioner, Howard Zucker, started to underreport the deaths that occurred by the COVID in an attempt to conceal the problem.
Jim Clyne, the president of the Leadingage New York, a representative organization of nursing homes and residential facilities for senior citizens, issued an 800 plus word statement supporting Governor Cuomo.
The statement accused hospitals rather than the administration of nursing homes of the tragedy. Mount Sinai Health System CEO Kenneth Davis also signed the statement. Michael Dowling, a former state staff official and a longtime aide of Cuomo, who is currently serving as the CEO of Northwell Health, also signed the statement.
All of this lobbying shows the vested interests of the Cuomo and GNYHA alliance in the matter for which they are trying not to be investigated.
Final Thoughts
The heap of allegations under which Andrew Cuomo is burdened right now shows too much about the character he has shown lately.
Sooner or later, Cuomo will be caught in some investigation, as the allegations are just building up day by day.
Alongside him, this time, his political donors are also in danger owing to their involvement in all this matter.
The Democrats should also distance themselves from all the Cuomo blunders going on so that they can keep the conflict of interests away from the professional business.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.