Transcript: Mayor de Blasio, First Lady McCray Announce Expansion of Charles B. Wang Health Center

July 18, 2017

First Lady Chirlane McCray: Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you for sharing your story, and I hope today marks the beginning of many, many more wonderful families like yours getting the care and the support they need to be healthy and well over the course of many generations.

It's good to be back here in Flushing, I used to live here in the late 70s for a few years and it is really good to be back here again. I want to thank you, thank you Jane and your team for hosting us here today. And thank all of you for joining us. What a great day this is. I'm glad to have this moment with everyone to celebrate a great example of how New York City can move forward, how our city continues to push ahead even as challenges are looming. Because these are troubling times, these are challenging times. People all over the country are watching Washington D.C., watching what's happening with the health care debate, and they're worried. They're worried and they're afraid and they don't know if they'll lose the coverage that their families depend on. They don't know if they're going to be able to manage their diabetes, or pay for their counseling service, or pay for substance use treatment. They don't know how they'll get by, so it's especially heartening to be here with all of you. People who fight so hard to make sure that all New Yorkers can get the care that they need.

The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center has been providing quality care, quality health care for nearly 50 years, serving people like Stephanie, her family, and tens of thousands of others. They make New York City proud. As New Yorkers we believe people shouldn't have to be afraid, they shouldn't have to empty their bank accounts when they get sick, and no matter how they came to our country and our city people shouldn't have to live in the shadows especially when it comes to health care. Those are our values, and community health centers like Charles B. Wang give meaning to those values every day in the neighborhoods where they're needed the most.

And we want to help them reach even more people. So today I am excited to announce that the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center will be expanding with the creation of a brand new HealthView Community Health Center right here in Flushing.

This city is proud to join Queens Borough President Melina Katz, the City Council, the Chinatown Health Planning Foundation, the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center Board of Directors, and other partners in supporting the new center through the Mayor's Caring Neighborhoods initiative. With the leadership of the New York City Economic Development Corporation HealthView will continue a rich tradition of serving the people of Flushing with holistic and culturally competent care. When it's fully up and running, more than 25,000 patients will be able to rely on HealthView for their most basic health care needs from primary care and dental checkups, to pediatric care and women's health services. And everyone will get treated regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status.

I am especially thrilled that in keeping with the goals of ThriveNYC the new center will provide mental health services to the people of Queens including screens for depression – screenings for depression and other illnesses, individual and group therapies, and a wide range of treatment options.

And New Yorkers will be able to speak with providers in Mandarin, in Cantonese, Korean, as well as English because no one should have to struggle to communicate – no one should have to communicate when talking about or struggle to communicate when talking about their own health and wellbeing.

Community health centers like HealthView are critical to serving New Yorkers well. We are at our best when people can get services right in their communities. So think about it, the people are surrounded by their family members and neighbors, they feel safer, they feel more supported and most comfortable. And that's how everyone should feel as they take care of themselves and their families, especially when in pain, suffering, when people feel most vulnerable. We shouldn't make getting well any more challenging than it already is.

Days like this make me incredibly proud to be a New Yorker. So many people came together to make this happen and so many more will work over – over the coming months and years to achieve our vision. What a stark contrast it is to what is going on in Washington with Congress members trying to make it more difficult for people to manage their health. And with so much focus on maximizing tax cuts for those who have plenty of money and plenty of options to manage their care President Trump and most of the Republicans in Congress are practicing a cruel kind of politics, of fear and cold indifference to peoples' lives. The only way we can counter that is by showing what we stand for, what we value. So as the Senate continues to play political games with the health and wellbeing of all New Yorkers, I want you to know that all of us in City government are fighting for you. And no one fights harder than the man by my side. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our mayor, Bill de Blasio.

[Applause]

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you. So it is really a pleasure to be here for several reasons. First, I want to join Chirlane in giving you my Flushing bona fides that I lived for two years on Saull Street right by the Botanical Garden, it was my bachelor years I say before I met Chirlane. And an amazing neighborhood to be a part of and it is great to be back. This is one of the most vibrant and extraordinary neighborhoods of New York City.

And we celebrate today the way we do things in New York City, the way we do things in Queens, the way we keep reaching people who need help regardless of what's happening in Washington D.C. Chirlane's absolutely right, this is a study in contrast today. We're celebrating that more people will be getting health care, we're celebrating that health care will be easier for people in the Flushing community and Queens to get because of this new facility. While literally over these weeks in Washington people have been talking about how to take health care away from millions and millions of Americans. And while we continue to fight battles in Washington, I fundamentally believe the answer is to keep showing what things should be, to keep being a beacon here in this city of the way that we want to see a fair society created, to keep being the antidote. It's something we and other cities around the country have ample opportunity to do while these fights play out in Washington. Keep getting help to people who need it, keep creating a more inclusive and just society. That's what we celebrate today.

I want to thank Chirlane for her extraordinary work, and I was very touched by Stephanie's story. So first of all, Stephanie, thank you for all you're doing, but thank you for being so open about the challenges your family has faced because just that very act of speaking about your personal story helps other people to be more comfortable to come forward and get the help they need. So, let's thank Stephanie for her leadership.

[Applause]

And I want to thank my wife because what Chirlane has done as our First Lady is made it easier for Stephanie and millions of New Yorkers to feel more comfortable talking about their mental health challenges and seeking the help they needed.

And I want to emphasize, this is something that should be easy, if you've got a challenge, to be able to talk about it and seek help. But we understand the stigma that's being created in our society and we understand how it stands in the way of solving people's problems. And for some people that manifests in really big challenges down the road whether it's homelessness or incarceration or so many things that could tear a family apart.

So, getting people to come out in the open, talk about mental health challenges, and then get help more easily than ever before – that's what our First Lady has devoted herself to. Let's thank Chirlane McCray for all she has done.

[Applause]

I also want to thank – this is a day to celebrate. I want to commend Jane Eng, the CEO of Charles B. Wang Health Center for all that you have achieved. Congratulations to you and all of your colleagues.

[Applause]

And the Economic Development Corporation of the City is going to be a big partner in this effort. Let's thank the President of the EDC, James Patchett.

[Applause]

So, think about it, Charles B. Wang – originally a concept of making sure that communities could get health care, that people would not be deprived of health care because of the language they spoke, because they were immigrants, because they didn't have a lot of money. Such a foundational idea that if people couldn't access health care nothing else could work in their life.

And so here things started to change. And Jane, I appreciate your story about the humble origins of this idea and then how it took flight and became so important to so many people.

This new facility is going to allow us to reach so many more people. And we know every day in this city there are still so many people uninsured, separate from what's happening in Washington. We know the challenge we have right up front.

Half-a-million undocumented folks who don't have access to insurance of any kind because they are undocumented, another half-million people who are eligible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act and still don't have insurance. And we've been fighting everyday to make sure we make that insurance more readily available to them.

It's a million people. And then there's lots of people who have insurance but still don't feel it's easy to access health care because maybe geography or a language barrier or they just don't understand how important it is to get care early before a problem develops into something bigger.

So, when you make health care more accessible to people, when it is at the grassroots, when it's available, when it's easy to reach, when it's in your language people get healthier. It's the whole concept of this place and that's why this expansion is so important.

We're proud to be partners and we know this is going to do a lot of good for the people of Flushing and the people of Queens in general. And this is the example we want to see more and more of. The more health care available and the closer it is to the grassroots, the better.

And the contrast to what's happening in Washington these last few weeks is so stark. Now, we all know that this health care bill in Washington, this is one of the ultimate moving targets we've seen in a long time.

Literally this morning we were all digesting the news that two more Republican Senators said they would not vote for a motion to proceed.

Then the Senate Leader came up with a new idea to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act.

And then just minutes ago we heard that three different Senators had come forward and said very clearly that they would not support that.

I want everyone to appreciate that all over this country, literally millions of people have raised their voices in the last few months in favor of protecting health care for all.

The Affordable Care Act used to not be sufficiently popular despite all the good it was doing. Now, the Affordable Care Act is supported by a majority of Americans. And more and more people think the efforts to repeal it are both unfair and ineffective but also motivated by the wrong political view and they want a better solution.

I want everyone to understand that fight's going to continue to rage. There is, unfortunately at this hour despite the changes, literally two major shifts that have occurred in the last 24 hours. We have to remain vigilant. No one who cares about health care should be resting on their laurels right now.

No one should be popping any champagne bottle corks right now. We've got to be clear this is still a very live situation in Washington and there's a lot of people in Washington who are trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act. And this ball game ain't over.

So, we're going to continue to work with allies all over New York and all over the country, particularly with fellow mayors to make sure that any new effort to reduce health care for people around the country gets beaten back.

So, today there is some progress but there's no reason to think this fight is over. I want to emphasize that, and everyone who cares should stay tuned and be ready to pick up the phone and reach to your friends and allies all over the country to keep them involved.

In the meantime, we have a lot to celebrate today and a great example to show our fellow New Yorkers. So many more people are going to get the care they deserve.

And now, it's my pleasure to bring someone up who can epitomize the difference between having access to care and not having it. I mentioned that we made a major new effort to get more people insured because as I said there's about half-a-million New Yorkers who could get insurance right now. The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land right now.

We started a strong initiative, grassroots initiative called GetCoveredNYC to reach people and make sure that if they were eligible and they were willing that we'd get them signed up for themselves and their family for life – excuse me – for health insurance.

And for so many people that meant the difference between being able to get care knowing care was out there, knowing they could afford it or the tragic reality that's been true for too many New Yorkers, not going to a doctor because they knew there was no way they could possibly afford it.

We want those days to be behind us. So, someone who has a good-news story from his own life is going to tell us about it now. It's my pleasure to introduce Joseph Banjo.

[Applause]

[...]

Mayor: Excellent. Thank you, everyone.