Republican lawmakers in Albany are calling for a special session to revive the popular alcohol-to-go provision that has helped restaurants stay afloat during and after the pandemic.
It’s a good idea — but it doesn’t go far enough.
The alcohol-to-go provision is perhaps the most widely known COVID-era change and certainly the most popular: More than 70 percent of New Yorkers support making it permanent, according to a restaurant-industry survey. Why shouldn’t we be able to bring a specialty cocktail home to enjoy with our takeout burger, especially if it provides a revenue stream for restaurants ravaged by the lockdowns?
Yet alcohol to-go is far from the only positive change made to Empire State regulations during the pandemic by temporary executive fiat. If lawmakers return to Albany, they shouldn’t limit themselves to just one issue.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo made hundreds of changes to laws and regulations while working to address the crisis. Early in the pandemic, for example, he loosened regulations on pharmacists, allowing them to order and administer COVID tests. Later, the Legislature amended the law temporarily to allow pharmacists to administer the vaccine.
This was a good idea — and the Legislature passed a bill this year allowing pharmacists to administer a wider range of vaccines to a wider range of New Yorkers. It was long overdue. This wider vaccine availability at pharmacies can help raise immunization rates for COVID and other diseases like the flu, especially in rural and other underserved communities. And it provides patients choice and convenience, while improving public health.
Win, win, win.
Cuomo’s executive orders to increase health-care capacity spurred more innovation and benefit in New York’s the health industry that should be made permanent.
Experts at one point predicted that peak COVID-19 hospitalizations could reach 110,000 — and New York had only 53,000 total hospital beds. To ensure adequate medical staffing, several of Cuomo’s orders relaxed laws and regulations to expand treatment capacities.
For some patients, the best form of patient-centered care is a home visit by the provider. Done well, a telehealth visit can be a close substitute. And for patients who miss appointments because they can’t arrange childcare, can’t make the commute, don’t feel well enough to travel or suffer from memory loss, a virtual visit is better than no visit.
Telehealth appointments have been widely popular among providers and patients. So much so that the state Department of Health issued emergency regulations the day after the state of emergency expired allowing Medicaid reimbursement for telehealth visits for the duration of the federal COVID emergency.
The Legislature could permanently reform state law to remove barriers to telehealth service options for New Yorkers based on patient needs. Providers should also be given opportunities to provide their services in the interstate market and not be left behind in this new nationwide telehealth reality.
To that end, the Legislature could consider the merits of an existing interstate licensing compact that make it easier for New York-based physicians to get licensed to practice across state lines, including via telemedicine, as 29 other states have already done.
New York already went further than the compact last spring. In a series of executive orders, Cuomo permitted an array of health professionals with active out-of-state licenses, inactive in-state licenses and Canadian licenses to practice in the state without an active New York license. Underserved areas of the state could have an opportunity for increased access to qualified health professionals if New York were to remove licensing barriers permanently.
The state’s emergency response to the COVID pandemic helped expose just how much unnecessary regulation New Yorkers labor under. Every change to a law or regulation Cuomo made by executive order should be reviewed with an eye to making permanent the changes that are already improving the way New Yorkers live and work.
The Legislature could do some good by trading a few more days of its summer vacation to make New York a better, easier place to live and work
Cam Macdonald is an adjunct fellow for the Empire Center for Public Policy and executive director of the Government Justice Center. This piece was adapted from a new Empire Center report, “Keep the Change.”