NY Health If passed, Bill No. A05389A would establish the New York Health program, which would be a comprehensive system of access to health insurance for residents of New York State. Among the elements of the bill are that it would create the administrative structure for the plan, determine the scope of benefits and the payment methodologies, and it would establish the New York Health Trust Fund, which would hold the monies used to finance the plan. A commission would be established in order to implement the plan, and the foundation for negotiations between New York Health and healthcare providers would be established (NYSA, 2014).

The bill creates a sweeping change in the health care system in New York, so it would affect nurses in a few different ways. At its heart, A05389A would affect the payer ecosystem, which is not directly related to nursing, but because it would allow nearly 2 million New Yorkers to gain new access to the health care system, and would give greater access to many more, this would have the effect of increasing demand on the health care system.

If we look at this from an

Providers that current are operating below capacity may find themselves at capacity. Others will find themselves operating above capacity. In the short-run, this might mean that some nurses are going to be overworked, or that there will be a shortage of nurses in a given area. As a nurse, I realize that the initial impacts of this bill might be unfavorable.
But in the long run, the effects are different because the industry will adjust. The most important factor will be that increased demand throughout the healthcare system will create increased demand for nurses. Healthcare providers will need to create more positions, which means more opportunities to gain full time work, more opportunities to move into newly-created nurse leadership positions, and more hours for those who are currently working part-time. If the providers in the state are still struggling to find nurses, this will drive up wages as a means of attracting them. If at that point there is still a shortage, either the higher wages will attract new people into the profession or the existing nurses will be overworked. It is too early to say which of these will occur, but the State predicts that 1500 new nurses are going to be required in the state by 2018, and health care providers are likely to going to face competition from other states to attract talent (NY Dept of Labor, 2014).

There is also the question of what will happen to the payer ecosystem. It is assumed that the state will have significant bargaining power, and the new patients created by this bill would therefore not be particularly profitable for providers. Thus,…