POUGHKEEPSIE — As this year’s state legislative session came to a close, health insurance companies announced their intent to take 17 percent more money from their customers in New York next year than they did this year. One company wants to raise rates by as much as 47 percent.

We could have ended this gouging of ordinary people by enacting the New York Health Act, a bill that guarantees access to quality, affordable healthcare to every New Yorker through a Medicare-for-all system. So far, President Donald Trump has failed to throw more than 2.7 million New Yorkers off health insurance by getting rid of the Affordable Care Act. But he is sure to try again, and a durable remedy is urgently needed. To that end, in May my Assembly colleagues and I passed the New York Health Act for a third consecutive year, but my friends in the Republican-controlled Senate did not. Read the full story at Poughkeepsie Journal.