New York Assemblyman Ron Kim (D) on Wednesday discussed the importance of his recently signed legislation that repealed a law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) that provided immunity to nursing home executives, saying it was necessary to “to hold these facilities accountable.”
“Exactly a year ago the governor relied on his top lobbyists that represented the special interests of hospitals and nursing homes to sneak into the budget of a 5,000 page document of a near blanket corporate immunity for the top executives,” Kim explained on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
“Now as you can imagine, when you’re giving out this type of corporate immunity to some of the worst nursing homes it serves as a disincentive for these businesses from investing further into PPE or hiring more staff,” Kim continued. “So it was critical for us to repeal it, to go the other direction to hold these facilities accountable, to direct them to invest more.”
Kim said that while other lawmakers and the media in other parts of the country shone a light on the flaws of the bill and prevented it from passing, a lack of transparency allowed it to pass in New York.
“In places like Albany and other capitals there wasn’t that much transparency and accountability. So they were able to put it through with the powerful executive like Andrew Cuomo who was on CNN and all these other mainstream media every night pretending that he was serving the public but when you look at the policies that he was putting together he was protecting the corporate interest over people’s lives,” Kim said.
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