New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has extended a free healthcare program for sex workers through June 2028, raising the taxpayer cost from $1 million to $2.5 million, without ever seeking approval from the state Legislature.
The New York Post obtained the documents first, reported by Rich Calder on June 20. The state Health Department renewed contracts with two providers: Callen-Lorde in New York City and EHS Inc./Evergreen Health in Buffalo. Each will collect $250,000 annually to deliver primary care, sexual health services, behavioral health treatment, and dental care exclusively to sex workers. The original pilot, which drew $1 million in public funds when it launched in 2023, generated sharp criticism at the time. Hochul extended it anyway, added another $1.5 million, and apparently did not announce it.
State Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo, a Republican from Staten Island, said Hochul is "absolutely catering" to Democratic Socialists of America interests. His comment points at a specific political calculation: DSA-aligned New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who won election in 2025, has aligned himself with the push to decriminalize sex work in New York. Pirozzolo's read is that Hochul is positioning herself to stay in favor with the left flank of the state Democratic Party now that it has a DSA mayor running the biggest city in the country.
The more durable problem for Hochul is not the politics but the process. The program was created by executive action, not legislation. The state Assembly and Senate never voted on it. No appropriations committee approved its expansion. The Health Department renewed the contracts quietly, and the public learned about it because a reporter filed for documents, not because anyone in Albany announced it.
That is a separation-of-powers problem regardless of how one feels about the underlying policy. Governors can direct agencies on many things, but committing $2.5 million in ongoing program spending over multiple contract cycles, to a category of recipients, delivering a specific package of services, on a timeline that extends two years into the future, is exactly the kind of spending decision the Legislature exists to make. New York Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers. If Hochul believed this program had merit, she could have sought a vote. She did not.
Pirozzolo told the Post the governor is spending public money on a constituency whose underlying activity remains illegal under state law, while the same political coalition pushing these healthcare benefits simultaneously agitates to decriminalize that activity. The tension is real. New York has not decriminalized sex work. The governor is funding specialized healthcare for an industry whose legal status her own allies want to change, and she is doing it without letting the legislature weigh in on either question.
What $2.5 Million Buys
Callen-Lorde is a well-established LGBTQ health provider in Manhattan. Evergreen Health, based in Buffalo, has a similar model focused on underserved populations. Both are experienced operators, and neither the Washington Examiner's earlier coverage of the $1 million launch nor the Post's reporting on the extension suggest any mismanagement of funds. The objection is not to the providers. It is to the decision itself: why this population, at this scale, through this channel, without a single floor vote.
The Health Department did not respond publicly to the Post's reporting before publication, according to Calder's account. The governor's office had not issued a statement as of the morning this article was published. PRN requested comment from the governor's communications office and did not receive a response.
The program runs through June 2028. Between now and then, Albany Democrats face reelection. Whether any of them publicly defend or distance themselves from the extension will tell a great deal about how the DSA's influence has reshaped the calculus inside the state party. Pirozzolo has already drawn the line clearly. The question is whether anyone on the Democratic side of the aisle joins him.
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