Assemblyman Phil Ramos: Putting Your Health First

Restoring
health
care cuts

Delivering
Medicaid
relief

Assemblyman Phil Ramos:
Putting your health first

Ramos helped deliver an on-time budget that protects quality health care and your wallet

Keeping Suffolk families healthy

The budget:

“The soaring cost of Medicaid is placing an unfair burden on Suffolk taxpayers. That’s why I fought for the state takeover of the program that will save local taxpayers millions and ensure quality care is there when our families need it.”
— Phil Ramos

Rejects the governor’s attempt to make it more difficult to enroll in Family Health Plus
Rejects the governor’s attempt to cut basic benefits like vision, dental and hospice care for Family Health Plus
Increases efforts to collect $20 million in rebates owed the state by pharmaceutical companies
Creates a preferred drug list that cuts costs, protects patients, and ensures doctors have the final say in medical decisions
Scales back the governor’s sick tax on nursing homes and cuts his tax on hospitals in half

Protecting care and property taxpayers

The bipartisan budget provides a property tax reduction by limiting the growth of local Medicaid costs, along with an acceleration of the state takeover of the Family Health Plus program costs, saving Suffolk County taxpayers $32.2 million next year.

Graph of the Projected Medicaid Relief for Suffolk County

Making personal decisions

Whether to accept or reject medical care in an end-of-life situation is a very personal decision governed by one’s own beliefs. Should a serious accident or illness leave you unable to communicate those wishes, it is necessary to take steps to ensure that they are honored. In New York State, that means having a living will or health care proxy.

Below is a health care proxy form that you can complete for your records. Once you complete a health care proxy, hospitals, doctors and other health care providers must follow your agent’s decisions as if they were your own.

After you sign your proxy

Give a copy to your agent, doctor, attorney and family members or close friends. Keep a copy with your important papers. You can contact my district office for more information. Do not put it in a location where no one else can access it, like a safe deposit box. Be sure to bring a copy with you if you are admitted to the hospital, even for minor or out-patient surgery.

Assemblyman
Philip Ramos
1010 Suffolk Avenue
Brentwood, NY 11717
(631) 435-3214
ramosp@assembly.state.ny.us

Health Care Proxy Form

**Click here for a printable Health Care Proxy Form**

1) I,

hereby appoint

(name, home address and phone number)

as my health care agent to make any and all health care decisions for me, except to the extent that I state otherwise. This proxy shall take effect when and if I become unable to make my own health care decisions.

2) Optional: Alternate Agent. If the person I appoint is unable, unwilling or unavailable to act as my health care agent, I hereby appoint:

(name, home address and telephone number)

as my health care agent to make any and all health care decisions for me, except to the extent that I state otherwise.

3) Unless I revoke it or state an expiration date or circumstances under which it will expire, this proxy shall remain in effect indefinitely. (Optional: If you want this proxy to expire, state the date or conditions here.

This proxy shall expire (specify date or conditions):

4) Optional: I direct my health care agent to make health care decisions according to my wishes and limitations, as he or she knows or as stated below. (If you want to limit your agent’s authority to make health care decisions for you or to give specific instructions, you may state your wishes or limitations here.) I direct my health care agent to make health care decisions in accordance with the following limitations and/or instructions (attach additional pages as necessary).

In order for your agent to make health care decisions for you about artificial nutrition and hydration (nourishment and water provided by feeding tube and intravenous line), your agent must reasonably know your wishes. You can either tell your agent what your wishes are or include them in this section.

5) Your Identification: (print) Your Name

Your Signature

Date

Your Address

6) Optional: Organ and/or Tissue Donation

I hereby make an anatomical gift, to be effective upon my death, of: (check any that apply)

Any needed organs and/or tissues

The following organs and/or tissues

Limitations

If you do not state your wishes or instructions about organ and/or tissue donation on this form, it will not be taken to mean that you do not wish to make a donation or prevent a person, who is otherwise authorized by law, to consent to a donation on your behalf.

Your Signature

Date

7) Statement by Witnesses: (Witnesses must be 18 years of age or older and cannot be the health care agent or alternate.)

I declare that the person who signed this document is personally known to me and appears to be of sound mind and acting of his or her own free will. He or she signed (or asked another to sign for him or her) this document in my presence.

Witness 1 (print)

Address

Date

Witness 2 (print)

Address

Date

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