The Next New York

What will it take to turn Mayor Mamdani’s campaign promises into policy? Find out at our three-part public forum series, starting January 21st.

Massive changes are coming to the state’s comprehensive, low-cost healthcare plan.

Jie Jenny Zou · September 26, 2025

The Essential Plan has enabled New York to offer near-universal health insurance coverage — but hundreds of thousands of people on the plan could soon be dropped. | Card: NY State of Health | Illustration: Leor Stylar

Who’s Covered Under the Essential Plan?

What’s Changing?

What Can the State Do?

Editor’s Note 10/16: A photo caption in this story has been updated to clarify the scope of pending changes to the Essential Plan.

At New York Focus, our central mission is to help readers better understand how New York really works. If you think this article succeeded, please consider supporting our mission and making more stories like this one possible.

New York is an incongruous state. We’re home to fabulous wealth — if the state were a country, it would have the tenth largest economy in the world — but also the highest rate of wealth inequality. We’re among the most diverse – but also the most segregated. We passed the nation’s most ambitious climate law — but haven’t been meeting its deadlines and continue to subsidize industries hastening the climate crisis.

As New York’s only statewide nonprofit news publication, our journalism exists to help you make sense of these contradictions. Our work scrutinizes how power works in the state, unpacks who’s really calling the shots, and reveals how obscure decisions shape ordinary New Yorkers’ lives.

In the last two decades, the number of local news outlets in New York has been nearly slashed in half, allowing elected officials and powerful individuals to increasingly operate in the dark — with the average New Yorker none the wiser.

We’re on a mission to change that. Our work has already shown what can happen when those with power know that someone is watching, with stories that have prompted policy changes and spurred legislation. We have ambitious plans for the rest of the year and beyond, including tackling new beats and more hard-hitting stories — but we need your help to make them a reality.

If you’re able, please consider supporting our journalism with a one-time gift or a monthly gift. We can’t do this work without you.

Thank you,

Akash Mehta Editor-in-Chief