They could have chosen to buy more ventilators to back up the supplies hospitals maintain. Instead, the health commissioner, Howard Zucker, assembled a task force for rationing the ventilators they already had.
In 2015, that task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst), depending on a "triage officer's" decision. In truth, a death officer. Let's not sugar-coat it. It won't be up to your doctor.
In 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece or a total of $576 million.
It's okay. New York had better uses for that money.
New York legislators are pushing a new law to have the cash-strapped state spend more than $500 million to provide virtually free, taxpayer-financed health care to more than 400,000 adult illegal immigrants.
The just-introduced legislation by state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) would require Albany to cough up at least $532 million to allow undocumented adult residents to enroll in the state's "Essential" or "Basic" public health insurance plan.
Priorities.
Illegal aliens get health care. Americans die.
