From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Early voting begins tomorrow in New York State.

It runs through November 1st and Election Day is now less than two weeks away.

Mercifully well, throughout this campaign season, we've been sitting down with the candidates who would like your vote, and today we are glad to welcome two candidates for the same office.

As a reminder, we invite candidates to appear together.

Sometimes they say yes.

Sometimes they say no.

Sometimes they say a lot of expletives, then followed by no.

But today it was yes.

And I'm glad to hear that.

And we've got the, the incumbent in New York State Assembly, district number one and 34, and the challenger, the incumbent is Republican and conservative line candidate Josh Jensen.

Welcome back to the program.

Happy to be back.

Evan and Kurt VanWuyckhuyse House is on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines.

Kurt, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me.

I'm going to ask the incumbent to remind our audience the outlines of your district first.

Yeah.

So it's, 134,000 New York's finest residents in the, towns of Greece, Ogden and Parma, which also includes the villages of Hilton and Spencer port, 134,000 and 134 Cemetery.

Look at that in the most perfect way.

Two websites to tell you about if you want to learn more about the candidates.

Josh Jensen's website is Jensen for assembly.com.

Kurt VanWuyckhuyse is a website is Kurt for progress.com.

He would like you to know that Kurt is with the K. So forget trying to spell the last name and just make sure the K is in there for Kurt.

Absolutely.

And you need something right.

You're a good shot there.

So we always start by asking the candidates to introduce or introduce themselves.

Just a little bit about themselves and their background and why they're running.

This would be for you, Assemblyman Jensen, your fourth term.

If you win, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and why you're running.

Yes, I'm certainly, I'm a lifelong resident of the district.

Graduated from Hilton schools.

Lived in Greece my whole life.

Served three terms, in the state assembly representing the community.

That I live in, and before that, spent three years on the town board representing the third Ward.

For me, I've spent my entire adult life in public service.

I come from a family of volunteer firefighters and was really, it was ingrained in me very early that, we're only here for a certain amount of time, and we should do everything we can every day to make the lives of the people around us better.

And, that was not going to be my vocation, running into a burning building, but finding a way to to serve the community that I love, where I'm raising my family, my kids.

It's something that I fight for every day, and I'm really passionate and honored to have the opportunity to represent and serve.

And Curt, same question for you.

Little about yourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I run a small family owned business in Hamlin.

I also went to Hilton schools and graduated from there.

I've lived in Greece since 2007.

I am a renter.

I am running because today the hospital system shut down from Covid.

My brother got diagnosed with an incurable but very treatable form of cancer.

Two years later, we end up losing him.

Mainly to.

Sorry about that.

Health insurance, red tape.

As someone that also runs a small business, I see what families and small businesses go through every single day with the rising costs of utilities, health insurance.

And I want to do something about that.

So I decided to step up and run for office.

I never thought this is something I would do, but I truly want to make life better and more affordable for working families and small businesses.

All right.

So we are going to talk about health care near the top here.

I do want to ask briefly, you guys graduated from the same high school.

Yeah.

About I think four years, difference at the same time.

No, I think you were two a sister.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm an oh six and you were, what?

020303.

Yeah, yeah.

So we went to crossover when he was a senior.

I was a freshman.

Yeah.

I'm very good.

So a couple of proud graduates I think.

And so let me start with I'm going to take something from your background, Kurt, and ask you both about questions about affordability.

Then we're going to get into health care.

But you just mentioned that you're a renter and you rent in Greece, right?

Yes.

Okay.

So I was listening to a conversation this morning about national politics, and one of the guests on the panel said that they would they would make a confident guess that there is nobody in the American Congress now, that's nobody in the US Senate, nobody in the US House who would walk into the grocery store and go, the price of beef is like nine bucks.

I can't like, like, when did that happen?

I can't afford it.

There's probably nobody who can relate to that in Congress.

I would venture a guess that in the New York State Legislature, there's there's fewer, but there's more people who have at least experienced the struggles of cost or are renters and not owners and, you know, understand a little bit more closely what affordability really means.

So I want to start by asking you if you think you're running for the right office to deal with affordability, because that is often talked about as national policies, etc.. But are there things that could happen that the state is doing or not doing that is driving up, or could drive down costs for New Yorkers?

Absolutely.

There are many things and could get right grab that might get even closer.

Yeah, there you go.

As I mentioned, I run a small business.

It's tough.

During Covid, our costs went up weekly.

Parts, you know, it used cost $300.

Do a break job.

It's 550, $650.

Now, after Covid not ended, but, you know, it's retracted.

Those parts costs haven't come down.

And obviously that's tied to national and international manufacturers apart.

At that same time, though, we've seen local large franchises and large dealerships start charging $200 an hour plus for labor on a vehicle.

We are happy to only charge $130 per hour.

Our workers are all paid well above market rate.

All of our workers have the best benefits we are able to provide.

We are still doing just fine.

Our bills are paid.

We can live okay.

We're not rich.

We don't drive brand new cars.

My car is four years old, has got 90,000 miles on it.

But I take that and look at what these large corporations and these large franchise chains are doing as they pay their workers next to nothing with barely any benefits.

Their job is on the line at any time, and it really hurts me to see.

And then you take it to a state level.

You look at the cost of business in a small family, pays, health care for example, when the ACA subsidies lapsed, our rate went up 38%.

That's on the business side, not including what a working family our employees premiums went up on top, their deductibles on top of their prescription drug costs on top of their co-pays.

You look at the utility costs as they were going outrageously high.

Our business, we had our rates jump 50% month over month over the winter.

And that is just outrageous to me.

The reason was, well, things cost more.

That's not a good reason to me.

So there are things like passing the York Health Act, which will save 92% of families money over their private insurance, pass the New York Heat Act to regulate and add income caps to utility costs that we can pass that will really help families and also bring money back to municipalities that will lower property taxes for families as well.

All of those go a long way to help families afford living.

Okay, we're going to get into the Heat Act.

Coming up.

We'll talk energy.

Both candidates want to talk about energy.

Well, just one follow up before I turn to Mr.

Jensen here.

When you are talking about the cost of brake pads, are you talking about the cost of a copay or a high deductible health plan?

The conditions in this country are such that if breaks were 300 bucks, still more people would get them done.

If these are 550 and you can't do it, you might try to.

You might risk it.

You might drive an unsafe car for a while.

You might.

You might not go to the doctor when you think you need to, because you don't feel like you can cover a high deductible plan, which a lot of Americans, myself included, are in a high deductible plan.

Most are.

But when you talk about the New York Health Act, are you concerned?

And for those who aren't following, this is a state level version of a single payer health care contract.

Are you concerned that the upfront costs would drive taxes up, would drive costs up, and would be would add to affordability problems?

I am not many studies have been done statistically.

It has proven the Rand Corporation just put out a study a couple months back.

92% of family is making under, I believe it's 200 or $250,000 a year, will save money over what they pay currently for their health care costs.

There will be no more deductible.

They have to pay.

Yes, the current iteration of the plan, anyone?

Any income?

It's progressive.

Over 25,000 will be taxed based on your income level, but you are not going to be paying a high deductible before you can even get the care you need.

You will not have a copay.

You will not have a prescription cost anymore.

It will also include your luxury bones and your, you know, your dental care.

Your eyes, mental health and addiction recovery services, all things which as of right now can be a la carte services on top of what you currently pay under the national for profit program we're in as of now.

So okay, let's get, Assembly Member Jensen on that.

So, so if you want to talk affordability in general.

And then if we could let your thoughts on health care costs.

Yeah.

So I think certainly when you look at affordability, it's not A11 person responsible or one body of government than the other.

It is a all encompassing thing.

And whether there's international trade demands, national trade policy, national economic policy, state mandates, that all goes into, impacting the cost of living in a society.

And certainly when you look at, our community, we see higher than average cost.

I mean, certainly when we go grocery shopping, we have to go to three different, we go to three different, grocery stores to make sure that we're saving as much money.

And that's what we have to do as a working family.

But one of the things that the state has to do is say, okay, where are national implications affecting us?

And where can we enact better public policy to make it easier for people to want to stay in New York?

And I think a big part of that that drives people out and makes it question the affordability to remain a New Yorker is the tax obligation, is the property tax obligation?

When people call my office, they don't complain about, the sales tax they're paying.

They say, I just got my tax bill.

Why is it so out of control?

And that's the thing that I think is driving, even larger affordability conversations.

Okay.

No.

So when it comes to health care.

Yeah.

So I don't know any Republicans who support the New York Health Act.

You would be the first, I assume.

I assume you still do not I do not support, the New York Times.

So.

So why don't you tell me why?

First of all.

And then we're working to what you think alternatives could be for health care.

That would be a better idea.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't support the New York Health Act because it's not a realistic, path to actually solving the problems with, the issues facing health care delivery in New York.

What's not realistic about, well, first of all, it would cost $373 billion.

And that was determined by the Rand Corporation when they studied it.

It would yes.

People would save money because they're not having to pay out of pocket, but they're still going to have to pay through taxes.

So 80% of the costs would be borne by a payroll tax by New York's employers.

The remaining 20% would be a personal income tax increase.

And 20% of that money would be borne by New York's taxpayers.

So you're really robbing Peter to pay Paul?

You're just paying the money differently.

Additionally, we have about 175,000 New Yorkers who work in the health insurance industry.

They would lose their jobs.

And the question is, the way the New York Health Act is currently constituted, it would not only, eliminate all private health insurance, but it would also, negate all collective bargaining agreements regarding health insurance as well as force every retiree who's a public service retiree in the state, who is on a state plan and is moved out of state, they would no longer be eligible for their retirement, health care benefits they would have to use.

New York is their single payer provider in a state where they may not have be in network anymore.

So it's not a feasible solution.

And to pay for it, we would have to get federal waivers and using Medicaid dollars, which for the next two years, you can be sure are not going to happen.

So a couple of things on this though, because there's some it's interesting you're both citing Rand, but you're seeing different things there.

So what Kurt VanWuyckhuyse is saying is that you look at Rand and most people are going to be paying less.

What Assemblymember Jensen is saying is if you look at that actual study in its totality, you may be paying less in a portion of your life, but you're actually paying more and others, and it adds up to the average person pays more.

Is that a fair representation for your position?

Yeah, I think so.

Overall, if you count everything that you're paying, yeah, it would be more.

Yes, I believe so.

Especially when you have a state budget that's $277 billion.

And now the cost of a New York health plan is now going to be $373 billion, probably more since the study was done, especially when the Medicaid portion of this year's budget was only $134 billion between state and federal local share.

And so you're going to see a huge increase if this were to become law in the amount of state spending, which who pays for that?

The taxpayers, the people you talking about losing their job?

175,000 people.

They can't kind of step over and work into a sort of a parallel new industry.

I mean, they're still we're still gonna need health care workers.

Yes.

But they're right now they're working for the health insurance industry.

So now you've completely eliminated all private health insurance.

You've outlawed it.

They are going to lose their jobs because their employer can no longer operate in New York.

Now, could they transfer?

Could they start to work for the state?

Which, by the way, we can't run a efficient and effective Medicaid system as it is today.

So suddenly we're going to have to bring all these people.

I mean, they're going to hit the unemployment line, they're going to find other jobs, but they're going to lose their jobs because of an act of the legislature.

Curt, my my read.

Is that you?

You look at that.

Rand study and you think that the average person would pay less, not just in health care but overall total, you think?

Correct.

I haven't I don't think we have enough time in the hour to go over all the things I want to comment on, so I'll try to keep it a brief summary.

We are a little bit limited, but yes, I would love to come back some other time to talk more on it though.

You will be well, yes.

So here's how I see it.

From what I just heard is people would be saving less money overall on their health care.

92% of families spending less on health care spending, spending less on health care.

Okay, they will then have a preventative health system versus a reactive health system, which you bring that up to things like my brother, who they believe that the cancer, the tumor was for me in his chest for three years.

I'm sorry.

I get a little choked up when I talk about this.

He tried and tried and tried to get seen just to get an MRI.

And by the time he was finally able to get it approved, it was, you know, over essentially, I look at things like that that don't happen in many other countries where they have a single payer system.

In our country, we are beholden to corporate health insurance.

And yes, there are many employees in New York State that work for for profit health care.

But what I see happening is I don't see why MVP excels.

These companies can't operate in the buildings are in now, and administer health care to the rest of the nation.

They don't have to leave New York as a company.

They can still work here.

On top of that, we need to offer retraining to these employees, to the administrators that the for profit health insurance companies state.

The reason their costs keep going up is administration cost.

We could retrain them or convert them to working for the state.

We're not only would they not be losing their job, they would be working for the state.

They would be getting the pension.

They'll be getting state benefits that will actually improve the lives of those workers.

So a couple things I I'm, I'm confident I can speak for Assembly Member Johnson and say, on the personal side, what you and your family have gone through is awful.

Of course, I I'm sorry.

And I'm sure Josh, I appreciate I like that this is not about I mean, I I'm really sorry about that.

Thank you.

And to me, it's not it's not about Josh as a person.

We talked about this in the lobby.

No, no, no, it's all good.

I mean, it's all policy, you know.

Yeah.

And that's what this should be about.

Absolutely.

My follow up then though, is when you look at, say, Vermont, which is a state that has roughly the same amount of people as Monroe County.

Right.

And they looked ten years ago and they were on the way to doing a single payer health plan.

And their Democratic governor pulled back and basically said, you know, we're not gonna be able to afford this.

And that's a much smaller state, of course.

Why haven't there been other states that have done this if this is going to be a viable solution?

So this brings me to the political spectrum as a whole.

Things like Citizens United, things like corporations being allowed to own politicians, politicians taking money from special interests, health care companies, energy companies.

This goes a long way into the policies that are formed.

Then you look at states like Vermont.

They have less than a million people, right?

They don't have a very large economy.

They don't have many resources to make money.

If New York State was its own sovereign country, we would be one of the top ten GDPs in the world.

We're not broke.

I know the talking points on the right on Fox News are that the state is broke.

The second quarter, we posted the fastest growing economy out of all 50 states.

We can afford this.

We have enough people to make it feasible to cover every single New Yorker.

And I would take it a step further.

I know this is an unpopular with some of the Democrats as well, but I believe that it's time the ultra wealthy and the corporations start paying their fair share to give back to the working families that they made their record profits off of the backs of a super wealth tax, a wealth tax, not an income tax.

I want to see not an income tax, an existing wealth tax and a wealth tax.

No no no no, not based on how much you're taking in a on an annual basis.

I'm talking to a different kind of tax because the ultra wealthy and corporations are great at hiding their money in investments, capital gains, real estate.

If we were to tax a modest 3 to 5% progressively anyone making over $5 million their wealth, you know, they they make an income of $5 million from that point on, their capital gains, their investments are taxed 3 to 5%.

The interest they're gaining from those investments is, on average, 7 to 10%.

They will still be making more money than they're giving back to the communities to help our working families afford to live a dignified life.

Okay, I'm going to be late for a break, but I need to give you plenty of time to respond.

There's there's a range there.

So.

Yeah.

So go ahead.

I'm going to go back to the health care portion.

And certainly when you look at Canada in the UK that have a less socialized version of medicine than what the New York Health Act would be, they're people who live in those countries, are not happy with the way health care is delivered.

Our kids first pediatrician was a Canadian pediatrician, and he couldn't wait to leave Canada because he couldn't actually do the health care.

He wanted to let me just get a job.

You have doctors on strike, and I want to look up the actual data I don't have in front of me.

So I'm not trying to like, fact check unfairly on the fly.

I'm very curious to know what Canadians in general say about their health care law or UK, because the national health system in the UK has plenty of reported problems.

I don't know on average what some in the UK thinks, but go ahead.

Yeah.

So I think that's, you know, to intake a version that would be even more socialized.

I don't think New York State can deliver it in a way, that is efficient or effective and would solve the issues that face our health care.

That's why for me, as the ranking member of the health committee, I've worked in a bipartisan fashion and sponsored legislation that would actually solve the problems we have now.

Like making it easier for people to enroll in Medicaid.

Look at how can we, reduce cost, have a cost benefit and a health benefit commission to actually make sure before we add new mandates, we actually know is there going to be a return on that investment?

So I think we need to figure out a way to actually make sure we don't have a society or a health care delivery system that allows providers to discriminate based on peer source, which is what we've incentivized by the Medicaid system.

We have now.

You have entire counties that don't have a dentist that accepts Medicaid.

That's a problem in a state like ours.

Okay.

And I can see current is just feeling like dying to jump in here.

Let me follow up with Assemblymember Jensen a couple of points.

Then we got to take a break and you will have time.

Oh, plenty of time.

We got time.

Assembly member Jensen to talk to me a little bit about.

So an entire county where a dentist won't take Medicaid?

Yep.

Is there a law that could change that?

Because it's up to it's up to the, providers about, what insurance providers they take now.

But what can be done about that?

So what we have to do is we have to raise the reimbursement rates.

We have to make sure that when people go in, that a provider doesn't have to worry about is somebody a medicaid payer, are they on excels?

Are they an MVP that we have a reimbursement rate for Medicaid that is on par with what the private insurers have, and that's going to cost the state more, isn't it?

We would do that by actually modernizing and bringing up to speed what our Medicaid system reimburses.

Okay.

And what are your Democratic colleagues say about this proposal?

That's it's too hard to do because we only have two year terms.

And, you know, you're going to have to make tough decisions, and that's too hard for us to do.

And so that's one of the things that is disappointing is somebody, you know, who wants to work in a bipartisan fashion, trying to find a way to make the current system work, because that's the only alternative that exists.

Okay.

The other thing before we get to the break is you talk about the concerns about Medicaid.

It is not on the state level, but on the national level.

Your party that has passed a bill that is about to take effect post-election, which will reduce the number of people who can get Medicaid.

And that's why I told a year ago, I told HHS and Doctor Oz that what they were doing in the effect of that bill to New York state was a mistake.

And that would greatly harm people who rely on the social safety net.

I worked for that part of the bill.

I did my words and my actions, have made that clear.

I told that to Doctor Oz and senior leadership at HHS.

I said that to the rank or to the, subcommittee chairman of, the House committee that oversees health care.

Because we have to have a social safety net that works for everyone.

And people need health care, how they need it when they need it, most importantly where they need it.

Because too many people fall through the cracks.

Where the differences between us is that I believe we have to do it within the existing system and not completely overturn the applecart in hopes that something else will make it better.

I have to I had to take a break.

Eight minutes to go, guys.

I gotta do it now.

We're going to come right back.

We've got, incumbent Josh Jensen, a Republican running for reelection for New York State Assembly District number 134, the Democratic challenger, Kurt VanWuyckhuyse.

And they're here together, taking our questions.

And yours.

Let's get this first break.

We're right back on Connections.

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I'm Evan Dawson.

All right.

There was something you wanted to respond to in there.

Go ahead.

Ticket.

There are a few things I want to respond to there.

I tried to remember all of them, but I know I won't.

So first and foremost, we talk about needing to make sure there's a safety net for New Yorkers.

That safety net comes in the form of a universal health care system, where they don't have to worry about in, in network versus our network provider.

They don't have to worry about a specialist, not being with Rochester Regional Health and paying triple what it would cost to have to go to IRC to get that service done.

That would come at the expense of that person's pocket, because specialist care is not currently covered in the same way as care from your current in network system.

And as someone that runs a small business, I sit here and navigate through our Healthy New York EPO plan, which is a small business affordable health care plan for companies made here with under 50 employees.

We have essentially two choices.

Both those choices are terrible excels and MVP.

We have to stick with one.

I'm not going to call out the insurance companies because I'm sure they'll find out how I feel about them as a whole.

Not as the people that work there, but as the executives that run those companies and make record profits off the back of people getting sick.

But both plans are outrageously expensive.

We don't have a choice.

We have to stick with the one we have.

The problem with that, as someone that runs a small business, we have employees at my job that are happy.

But there are other companies.

There are companies like Walmart, one of the richest families in the country.

I don't I say majority, I don't remember the exact statistic and I don't want to misspeak.

But a large amount of their employees work for Walmart, who is owned by a multi multi-billionaire family.

And they have to have welfare and Snap, and they have to rely on safety nets because that corporation will not pay them the money they deserve to work.

It used to be minimum wage meant you're making enough to afford to live.

One person in your house works.

The other person is able to take care of the home, get the groceries, work on the bills, take the kids to school or sports.

Now, the average person, in order to even afford a home, has to make $140,000 a year just to be able to afford a single family starter home.

That ten years ago cost half of what it cost now.

And I tie this directly to people predatory banks, predatory insurance companies, predatory landlords that are buying up all these properties and renting them out so families do not have the inventory to find to buy.

On top of that, currently, we have to get back to my point.

I will go on tangents.

I try to hold it down, but some of that works at Walmart.

Someone that works for an other small business where the owner may not be great to their employees.

We'll say people are afraid to leave their jobs are in because if they leave, they don't have health care anymore.

They will have to find another job that hopefully provides a plan that works with their network, the doctors they have already been going to see for who knows how long they lose that.

We talk about there not being a dentist that will work with Medicaid or Medicare in certain counties of the country, or of the state.

If we were not relying on these for profit insurance companies and national programs that are during or under current administrations and then future administration, who knows where that money is going to be pulling back hundreds of billions of dollars from of funding for Medicare and Medicaid.

But what about just raising reimbursement rates when instead of changing the entire system, as your opponent says, raise reimbursement rates, give them that certainty, and then you'll see more.

Take Medicaid.

No, I don't believe so, because there's still the uncertainty of dosage came in, promised all Americans they're going to save trillions of dollars.

I don't I haven't seen the those check.

I don't know if any of you have at that same time, the cost to run Dodge came out to be more than what they actually saved.

All right.

So let me just jump in with one other question.

Do you think that your small business could handle the payroll tax that would increase if we had a single payer health care system?

Oh, yeah.

So, for example, my business, we are not big.

We our revenue is under $1 million.

That doesn't mean we make $1 million a year.

And auto shop is one of the most expensive businesses you can run.

The overhead is crazy, but when those ACA subsidies lapsed, our insurance rates went up.

Like I said, they doubled.

And every couple months I get a letter from Excel stating, hey, we want to raise your rate 17%.

Hey, we're reaching out to New York to raise your rate 20% because the cost of administration, if these administrative costs weren't there, if that's where the blow is, why don't we pass a program where we can bring in these employees that are working for these for profit health care systems into the state system?

It will lower the cost of administration.

It will help save businesses money.

And that, again, is where I I'm not afraid to stand up to either party.

I am a designated Democrat, but I am proud to be endorsed by our Revolution and New York Progressive Action Network.

They are organizations that care about working families and people, and understand that we need to bring power back to the people and not allow money, the interests, to run our politicians.

All right.

So let me give Josh plenty of time here.

I want to hit a couple of points here.

So some of what you're talking about is housing and the concern of, I mean, we've talked about this, but let's get into this a little bit here, because in Albany there have been different proposals for what to do about housing.

The governor had her own proposal a couple of years ago that didn't go very far.

And I'm curious to know what you think could be done right now to help people with the cost of housing.

I mean, we we need more housing.

That's part of the problem supply.

We need more supply and we need more of all different supply.

How do we get there?

You have to find a way to make, and incentivize people to want to build supply.

That's what we need.

I mean, but also housing costs are so high right now because the market is hot.

You know, we bought our house, in 2017.

And we could probably sell it for more than twice of what we paid for it, but then we'd have to buy something that would buy a house four times as much.

And that's also a problem that happened so fast.

Right.

And that and that happened during Covid.

And if people are willing to pay a stupid amount of money for a house, is it government's job to say no, don't pay a stupid amount of money for a house?

But to your point, if the supply were bigger, we all we hear about inventory all the time and we hear about the the challenge, particularly if you again, if you look state by state, community by community, blue governed states are having a harder time building.

So what's going on in your view as a Republican that is limiting?

Well, because it costs more money to build because when you have when you look at and you mentioned bluer states, but you look at a state like New York where we have more regulations, we have more mandates, it costs more to build the house than it's going to have to cost more money to purchase.

So are there regulations that should be trimmed away that you think?

Well, yeah, there's I know there's a regulation that in houses of a certain size they have to have sprinkler systems.

Now that increase costs on building.

Yes.

Does it increase safety.

Sure.

But how many houses that were built in the 70s, 80s, 90s, early two.

Thousands that have never had a problem needs sprinklers.

But now that's a mandated thing that has to be in certain new builds.

When you say that, you look at the CL, CPA and say that we're going to start the climate bill, the climate bill that we're going to start to phase out, natural gas.

Now, you have to look at other ways to ensure that when that goes into effect, this house can be powered all electric.

That increases the cost.

Now, the governor essentially tried to push back the timeline for some of those benchmarks.

Yes.

For for the for benchmarks, not for the implementation of the law.

Okay.

So simply how we look at the data.

But she was very clear.

And her party members in the legislature were very clear that we are not going back, that all of the guidelines and the benchmarks in the CL, CPA are going to remain in place, which is going to continue to raise the costs on all New Yorkers.

Which brings us kind of to energy, because you mentioned CL, CPA and you're right, there's a push toward all electric.

But we've heard everything, everyone from Bruce McMullen to many other Republican, candidates this cycle say that if they are able to get elected, they want to revisit fracking in this state.

Do you want to revisit Frank?

I think those I mean, it's the law.

So you would have to have an act of the legislature.

Sure.

Which.

But you've heard Bruce Blakeman talking.

He's very, very interested in getting this changed.

I don't think that a governor can unilaterally override, overrule the will of the legislature.

And as somebody who believes in the institution of the elected legislature, it needs to be voted on.

So I think that is both heartening and like a mildly a dodge here because, like, let's just not like live in a world where you get the majority, you've got the majority.

Now you've got the Republicans in power in New York State, you can dream Republican member Jensen.

Why not?

I mean, we've had Republican governors in the past.

We've had more legislators in your party.

So what was you governor's race last term?

It's five points.

Yeah.

What would you do?

I think that you look at a state like Pennsylvania that does allow fracking.

And they're able to do it in a way that is environmentally safe, protects the communities that have the fracking going on with a Democratic governor, with a Democratic governor, with a Democratic legislature, and they're able to make it work.

Now, do I think there should be unilateral, state direction that every community has to allow for drilling for natural gas?

Absolutely not.

I believe that we must respect home rule, and that if a community does not want to allow fracking in their community and it was legalized, it shouldn't happen.

But it should be up to the communities themselves, whether or not they want to allow that type of energy.

Source, development.

So you want to see do you think we have not enough home rule in general in the state?

So I think about data centers, for example.

Yeah.

Should there be more, say, in the local communities with something like data centers?

I think I think home rule should rule.

You look at for data centers.

I voted against the moratorium.

I'm against the governor's decision.

I believe that in 2026, we are living in the Innovation Academy.

And when a year ago, the governor in her budget, touted how she was making New York, the Silicon Valley of AI.

And then 12 months later says, while I'm an election year, we got to do a moratorium.

I don't take that at face value, but we need to use this technology.

We're living in a globalized economy and a globalized world that relies on information.

But whether or not a data center should be in a community should be up to the local elected leaders from feedback from their direct constituents.

So if Hamlin or if Tory in the Finger Lakes or Dryden, or if any other community says we do want it or we don't want it, and it should be up to them, and that's, I believe, the same thing about, things like solar, solar arrays and wind turbines, because right now, between legislation was passed in 2019 and then renewed in 2024, that if a solar array is of a certain size, the local community has no say in whether or not to get centered in that community.

I think that's wrong.

Local government should be able to determine the future of their community.

Okay, here's what we're going to do.

The Democrat in the race is going have plenty of time to talk about energy.

We got to get our second and final break in.

And if you're on the phones waiting to jump in with questions, comments, if you've written emails, we'll take those.

We're going to squeeze a lot in here with the candidates for New York.

134 In the Assembly, the incumbent Republican, Josh Jensen, the Democrat Kirkman, white House coming right back.

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Now we're going to be really tight and focus with Kurt VanWuyckhuyse Data centers.

Did you support the moratorium?

Absolutely.

Would you support a permanent ban in New York State?

I personally would, but the way I look at it is unfortunately, because blue state, red state or state, a lot of politicians are run by big tech corporate America.

It's inevitable they will likely be built when that happens.

If that happens, I feel it needs to be strictly regulated.

If a tech trillionaire billionaire comes into a small town, build a data center, they need to be on the hook for any environmental issues that happen.

They need to make sure all of the profits from that data center go back to that community in the form of, you know, income to the municipality.

How would you all the profits, how would you ever do that?

How would you account for that?

So the way I look at it is when you have a big tech billionaire come in to a small town and there are you can look all over, there are interviews with people that live in red states that have owned a house for 25 years.

And suddenly, overnight, seemingly, there's huge warehouse style building gets put across the street from them and they have to sit there and hear what sounds like the droning from a jet engine constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that can be loud as their house value drops substantially.

Because of that happening, there needs to be something done to control how that works.

The way I look at it is if inevitably, I am hoping we can put a ban on data centers, big tech data centers.

You know, I'm fine with smaller outfit type thing, but if a company is or a tech billionaire is going to come in to a small town, build this data center with the promise that it's going to be a boon for the local economy and make everyone's lives in that community better.

That's just not true.

If there's not regulations that control how that is built, how that community is taken care of by that tech billionaire and how that funding is given.

All right.

So there's difference here on data centers.

What about fracking?

Would you ever be open to re.

No.

Re discussing fracking.

No.

The way I look at fracking in Pennsylvania is yes, Josh Shapiro is a Democrat, but he's also a corporate Democrat.

That takes a lot of money from fossil fuels, natural gas.

And I know Josh, and I'm not trying to call you out directly, but you take money from Avangrid rg eni National Fuel other, you know, fossil fuel companies and you're against the market Act, which I understand.

So what's the new architect?

You're for the New York.

I am for the New York.

What's the New York essentially what that would do is cap utility costs for low and middle income families to 6% of their income, which is a good start to me, and will also provide grants and fundings to local municipalities that are willing to look into sustainable green infrastructure.

I know in Parma there is just a big fight about corporate mega solar farms.

I do not support corporate solar farms.

What I support is community solar.

You look at farmers in these rural communities that the talk is, well, the farmers.

It's ruining the farmers fields.

The reality is, because of factory farming, these independent farmers have a hard time surviving.

My uncle owns an organic cattle farm in Kent, and it's almost impossible to compete against corporate farming.

And then you look at, like his farm he put on his own solar field.

But do you agree with your opponent that a local community should be able to say, look, this is we're going to say no to this array, that especially the larger sites, there should be some more home rule.

I believe.

Absolutely.

It should be up to him and his party and the community to vote on if this is a lot or not, but at the same time, like part of the law, they just passed if, small farm would like to sell part of their property or lease part of their property to a solar array company, if it's not a big tech or big corporate solar farm, if it's a small farm, that can actually be a boon for that small farm and they make more money per acre.

So not only that, sure, but that's why a lot more reasonable people talk about.

Yeah, but what happens when the rays deplete those photovoltaic cells can be recycled.

Now, I propose that if, Solar Field is going to go into a community, it needs to be required to be built by local union labor.

We're not going to have out of country or out of state contractors come in and build these.

There needs to be a plan set up for 20 to 25 years when those arrays do start to deplete and the efficiency that they have, that there is a plan for them to be removed and replaced safely and again, safely being their batteries, their solid state energy producers and it's a steel frame.

Okay, I got to jump in here, let Josh talk about the new architect for or against it.

Well, first of all, I'm going to say, since my integrity was called into question, that, for me, the only thing that matters when legislation comes before a committee I'm on or the assembly is whether or not it's in the best interest of the people.

I represent and the people of our state.

Nobody can buy my vote and nobody can buy my integrity.

And I think just because somebody, receives a campaign contribution doesn't, shouldn't be called into question whether or not they're putting the interest of their constituents, because certainly Democrats do it, Republicans do it.

And I disagree with all of them.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's fine.

New York act I don't support I think it would raise costs for New Yorkers.

I think it's a one size fits all approach that, does not look at the fundamental reality that we have to deal with.

And the biggest problem we have right now is we don't have enough energy on the grid.

And so when 55, I believe 55% of our, or, excuse me, 45% of our electricity bill is purchasing the actual power that's delivered to us.

We need to create more energy, and that means we need true all of the above energy solutions.

Not, playing favorites for wind and solar, which is what we currently do in this state.

And I'm sorry, but I got to do this real tight.

Then I'm going to get phone calls.

More nuclear in the state, you know, 100% more nuclear.

Kurt VanWuyckhuyse.

No.

Okay.

So there's a the sun is unlimited.

We have the most freshwater in the world in our area.

We can we can do sustainable green energy without having to bring in another solar or, nuclear plant.

All right.

To the phones, Jack.

And grease has been waiting.

Go ahead, Jack, go ahead.

Oh, I have a quick, I called about Customs and Border Protection, but I've got to make a comment first on affordability and health care.

That is, states as far as I know, we're still the only one of the top 20 countries in the world, industrial countries where someone can go bankrupt from their health costs.

So with that, let me transition to customs and water we live with within two hour drive.

Less than that, but door to door to go to Canada Niagara like my wife and I go there numerous times.

And you Off-Season to take advantage of the low rates, beautiful hotels, beautiful farmland, vineyards.

Same thing with the Finger Lakes.

Now I go there.

When I go to Canada, I try and bring back wine for personal use.

But the chaos that I've got, my representative, John Jensen, you are you you were covered with this because the chaos caused by this MAGA party.

Now that Trump has, war going on in terms of trade with Canada, I quote Customs and Border Protection to find out.

Can I bring back a couple of bottles like a new do?

And I got conflicting answers.

Finally we get and and, I don't think this is a state issue.

Is it?

Is this a New York State issue?

Yes.

I, I put Josh Jensen down.

This is a local issue.

We're within a mile, an hour and a half of Canada.

And this causes.

And to see what's going on I know this is done at the national level, but it's his party.

People know the Republican Party need to stand up and take ownership of the chaos that this administration has caused.

All right.

Let me just jump in here, Jack.

Go ahead.

Assembly member Jensen.

I mean, he's entitled to his opinion.

I disagree with him, but he's entitled to his opinion.

Where do you disagree?

That I have any say over what Donald Trump does on a daily basis?

In the six years he's been in office, I've never had a conversation with the president.

He's never called me and asked me my opinion.

And I doubt that he will over the next two years.

Do I agree with everything the federal government does?

Absolutely not.

But my job is not to be a federal legislator.

My job is to represent at the state level the people of Greece, Ogden and Parma, and work to make sure that we're enacting policies at the state level that are in their best interests.

Let's see here.

Thank you.

Jack.

Allison Rochester.

Next.

Hey, Alice.

Go ahead.

Hey.

I'm here.

Yeah.

I just wanted a comment about the idea of, raising Medicaid reimbursement rates.

In order to, you know, make providers give providers more incentive to use it.

The problem is, if that were done right now without the kinds of, other actions taken by the New York Health, actually does to offset this, those higher Medicaid rates would then be charged to New York State because the federal government won't cover them.

New York State would pass them on to counties, which is what they already do, and counties would have no choice but to pass them on as property tax hikes.

And I don't think anybody would be happy about that.

All right, Alice, thank you.

Assemblymember Jensen, go ahead.

We have a system right now where providers have to discriminate based on payer source.

And it's because Medicaid is not efficient or effective, and that we have some of the most generous Medicaid system.

But that's also why we need to make sure that when we pass legislation granting a new coverage model, that we actually figure out how much it is going to cost and how many New Yorkers are actually going to be helped by it, we don't do that now.

And we have to have a complete realignment of our Medicaid system that makes sure that it provides that social safety net, but we're doing it efficiently and effectively when that cost then just be passed to counties and then pass it back to tax payers.

I mean, right now it is only $9 billion of the $135 billion that we spend on Medicaid is to the counties.

But counties also have to administer a lot of non health care related Medicaid spending, like early intervention and other things of that respect.

I got to keep it tight if you want to jump in on that.

Yeah.

So all I would say to that is again, when we look at the cost of health care, when we look at the Medicaid reimbursement getting increased, it all comes down to the federal government being relied on to actually provide that funding to us in the first place.

And with the way things have been going, with the way things are going to be going in the next two years, hopefully things turn around and we can get back to an era where we had like the McCain Obama style politics, where they stood up for each other as people in focus, specifically on policy.

It's something that we really have to worry about because we don't know that that Medicaid funding is going to be there.

And if we were to pass a system where we were providing health care to every New Yorker, it would go a long way in making people feel comfortable in our state, knowing that they are not going to go bankrupt to health care like my brother almost did.

He had to fight to save his house as he was going through treatment.

And to me, that is something that is ridiculous because we are the only country in the world that has to deal with that.

And yes, of course there are issues with a single payer system.

There are issues with any system.

But I feel like if the counter to that is all New Yorkers being covered and not having to worry about how they're going to pay to get the treatment they need, it's well worth it.

I'm going to get Rene's email.

We only have 3.5 minutes, so we got to try to do this TikTok, she says.

Evan, I have a question related to the Cornell seven.

Do your guest support a law that would eliminate voluntary intoxication as a defense against rape, or sexual assault?

Assembly member Jensen first, go ahead.

Yes, I'm a co-sponsor of that legislation.

Do you want to just briefly explain it?

Yeah.

So it essentially would rule that you can't use the fact that somebody voluntarily, dragged to point of accessing a ticket or gets high or, as a reason why, they acquiesced to sexual activity.

I believe that's a commonsense change.

And I think the situation Cornell is unfortunately being the catalyst to actually having these conversations, as a policy, is our momentum in the past that you think the speaker laid out a task force?

I know, Harry Bronson, Jen Lunsford, or members of the task force, I think it has over 76 co-sponsors.

So it would pass if the speaker put it on the floor today.

I love to see a special session before the end of the year, called to pass it, and I would vote for it.

Would you vote for it if you were like, oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

I actually happen to be at Cornell University for, town hall from AOC the week on that broke.

And just hearing that, it's abhorrent.

It's ridiculous.

And all I can say is shame on those people.

Shame on anyone else that was in that messaging group that did not stand there.

Stand up and say something.

And I think the fact that some of them got away with having to write an essay on why it was wrong is just ridiculous to me.

And it I just don't have any anything else to say to it aside from it's pure disgusting.

Any like anyone that would be opposed to passing that.

I just don't know how you can live with yourself.

Okay, but we had had a question from Melissa on a separate show in a separate assembly race that the premise of the question was, if you look at the comments from Governor Hochul and the attorney general, Letitia James, it looks like they've already made their conclusions before there's been an investigation.

The governor called it a brutal assault.

Letitia James, I mean, AOC called it a gang rape, a seven person gang rape.

And and Letitia James has used kind of similar language.

Do you think that elected leaders have spoken to quickly or too far before a final investigation?

I feel like with the severity of what happened, allegedly happened, the knee jerk reaction is warranted, especially for from women who have, through history, had to just put up with this and shut up.

I come from a family with an emotionally abusive father, and I grew up being told by my mother and other family members just not say anything because it's just going to cause more problems.

If people find out what's going on.

It's just it's not good.

Just don't do it.

And it took a long time for me, going through years of therapy to unlearn that behavior and stop just not speaking up.

And I feel like it's warranted from where they're coming from.

I also truly feel that you are innocent until you prove until proven guilty.

Okay, there's a governor out of line.

I don't think the governor was was out of line.

Great.

I have a problem.

Is with the Attorney General being appointed as the independent prosecutor, with her making public comments, that prejudge guilt?

I would have preferred if the governor would have named a different independent prosecutor.

And once he took that responsibility to prosecute away from the local D.A., that they would have given that to somebody who hadn't made public comments on the situation.

From what we know about what those men did and it's there's still a lot I understand there's still an investigation from what we know.

If that was if one of those seven people were one of your children or some if it was my daughter, I'd want to strangle them with my two hands.

But that's also why parents don't have a role in the justice system.

Okay.

Right.

And niece.

Nephew.

Same kind of question.

You feel the same way?

Absolutely.

It's it's ridiculous to me.

I briefly oh my gosh.

40s.

So let me say this here, once again, we got a comment from, this is Mariana.

I just want to say how proud I am of the candidates, regardless of party who show up on the program face to face, giving us what we need to hear, ideas hashed out and not vitriol directed at each other.

So I salute from a number of of listeners and voters.

If you want to learn more about Kurt VanWuyckhuyse, it's Kurt for progress.

Dot com Kurt with a K. Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Want to learn more about Josh Jensen's candidacy Jensen for assembly.com.

Thank you very much for being here.

Always a pleasure.

And early voting starts tomorrow.

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