In campaigning for president, Rudolph W. Giuliani has criticized Democrats for promoting “socialized” medicine, boasted about his record as mayor of New York City for dramatically reducing public assistance, and vigorously opposed expanding government health insurance for children.
But the reality of his health care record as mayor was more complex.
He began his tenure in City Hall vowing to curb the role of government in health care. He removed large numbers of people from welfare. He tried, but failed, to sell off New York City’s public hospital system. And he discouraged New Yorkers from enrolling in Medicaid, the government health program for the poor, telling city health officials that the program was a “bad idea.”
But in the spring of 2000, during his second term and soon after he received a diagnosis of prostate cancer, he suddenly announced that the city would embark on one of the most aggressive efforts in the country to enroll children and adults in public health programs like Medicaid and Child Health Plus, the state insurance program for children.
He named his effort HealthStat, after his aggressive and widely praised crime reporting program, CompStat. He said he would follow the same course on insurance: he would root out the uninsured as he had rooted out criminals.
Mr. Giuliani’s critics say that his changing views and policies on health insurance during his eight years in City Hall are a prime example of the kind of political expediency that has defined him as a mayor and now as a presidential candidate. His current market-based proposals on health care — which would give consumers tax benefits to buy their own insurance and the poor some combination of tax refunds and vouchers — seem to have him campaigning against his own record in some ways, they say.
Read it here: Giuliani Expanded Public Health Care as Mayor