Plan will stick N.Y. for billions

THE HOUSE GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare could cost already cash-strapped city hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially blow a multibillion-dollar hole in future state budgets, officials said Wednesday.

The state would have time to prepare because the House plan wouldn’t go into effect until the end of 2019.

Even so, Mayor de Blasio warned it would have a “devastating” impact on 1.6 million city residents and pose a “tremendous danger” to the city’s hospital system.

“The discussions in Washington seem to leave out how devastating the impact would be on 1.6 million New Yorkers, and tens of millions of Americans,” the mayor said.

De Blasio projected that 200,000 people who use the city’s public hospitals would lose insurance under the bill, which would force taxpayers to pay those costs and result in hundreds of millions in additional deficits for the city hospital system.

The city has added 17,000 more people to the Obamacare rolls as part of a campaign to encourage signups and is aiming for 50,000 this year, he said.

Local funds cannot be expected to make up for lost federal subsidies, de Blasio said. “We’re already looking at the first wave of budget cuts starting to come in . . . . We’re bracing ourselves for a lot of challenges.”

The offices of Gov. Cuomo and state Controller Thomas DiNapoli on Wednesday continued to analyze the bill, but couldn’t give specifics on exactly how much it could cost the state if passed.

“The health care bill proposes deep cuts and changes that may leave more New Yorkers without health insurance and will shift more costs to the state,” DiNapoli said Wednesday. “This bill could cost New York dearly, especially in coming years.”

Rep. Joseph Crowley (DQueens) estimates the House bill could cost the state up to $6 billion. Rep. Louise Slaughter (DRochester) pegged the cost to the state at $3.7 billion.

“Long-term, it will have an effect in raising the cost for middleaged and older people,” Crowley said. “The younger you are the less you pay, the older you are the more you pay.”

State Senate Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon