Gimme Zohran Mamdani
How Democratic Socialism Can Help Healthcare & The Disabled Community in New York City
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Zohran’s healthcare platform, as stated directly on his website:
Twelve percent of New York City residents are uninsured. To expand access to healthcare, Zohran will create a new corps of outreach workers to support New Yorkers navigating the healthcare system. Those workers will support patients in understanding the public resources available to them: how to find insurance, apply to programs, access financial assistance, and claim their health benefits. As Trump attacks public health, particularly reproductive healthcare, Zohran will also guarantee that these outreach workers connect every New Yorker in need of reproductive care to affordable, quality support.
Moreover, New York’s public hospital system serves over one million unique patients a year and is the crown jewel of our public health infrastructure—but it faces significant funding gaps, leading to underinvestment, understaffing and overburdened caregivers. Meanwhile, we keep closing our critical community hospitals. Zohran will work with our healthcare unions and city and state partners to increase funding for H+H and end hospital closures. He will also protect NYC for future public health emergencies, including guarding against shortages of PPE, ensuring adequate surge capacity and healthcare worker safety, maintaining programs like Test and Trace to stay on top of trends, and more.
As Mayor, Zohran will reject Medicare Advantage, and reject higher copays for in-service workers. Instead, he’ll partner with workers and their unions to take on the fragmented, for-profit healthcare system and lower costs for everyone.
Let’s break down how Zohran’s healthcare policy directly benefits everyone, especially disabled people in New York City.
Mamdani’s platform tackles systemic barriers like confusing paperwork, hospital closures, and insurance hurdles that hit disabled people the hardest, and it invests in the public systems they rely on most. Zohran will fight medical gatekeeping by adding human assistants to get through red tape; keeping accessible, affordable hospitals open; planning for emergencies that disproportionately impact disabled people, lowering out-of-pocket costs so copays don’t eat up income; and backing healthcare workers so patients get consistent, safe care without staff burnout. This platform benefits everyone, so let’s look at the specific aspects of his healthcare platform below.
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Many disabled people face complex medical systems, frequent paperwork, and bureaucratic hurdles to get coverage, financial help, and appropriate care. A dedicated corps of outreach workers would:
Help everyone, including disabled people, find insurance or get re-enrolled if dropped.
Assist with applying for Medicaid, SSDI, or other benefits, which disabled people often rely on.
Support people who struggle with executive function, literacy, language, or mobility barriers in navigating paperwork, phone calls, and appointments.
Connect disabled people to reproductive care, which is often less accessible due to discrimination and medical gatekeeping.
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Public hospitals often provide specialty care for chronic and complex conditions at lower or no cost. For disabled people:
Keeping these hospitals open means more local access to essential treatments, rehab, or urgent care.
More funding means better staffing, shorter wait times, and better care quality for high-needs patients.
Public hospitals provide accessible facilities, crucial for people with mobility or sensory needs. Ensuring this will make healthcare better for all.
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Disabled people are disproportionately affected during health crises (COVID-19 was a prime example of this). By planning for adequate PPE, emergency capacity, and staffing, this plan:
Protects high-risk disabled residents during outbreaks.
Prevents disruptions to routine care for disabled people when hospitals are overwhelmed.
Keeps programs like Test and Trace, which can be vital for people with compromised immune systems or multiple conditions.
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Medicare Advantage often denies or delays care, cuts covered services, or narrows networks, hurting disabled seniors or younger people on SSDI Medicare.
Rejecting it protects people from surprise denials.
Keeping copays low means affordable ongoing care, which is essential when you have multiple appointments, medications, or therapies.
Additional plans that benefit everyone, including the disabled community.
Below are targeted initiatives would create a more supportive, inclusive environment for people, especially disabled New Yorkers across housing, transit, education, and community safety.
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The Department of Community Safety will invest in citywide mental health programs and crisis response, including deploying dedicated outreach workers in 100 subway stations, providing medical services in vacant commercial units, and increasing Transit Ambassadors to assist New Yorkers on their journeys.
Additionally, they will expand evidence-based gun violence prevention programs and increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%. Read the full proposal here.
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The Mamdani administration will provide new parents and guardians with a collection of essential goods and resources, free of charge, including items like diapers, baby wipes, nursing pads, post-partum pads, swaddles, and books.
Each NYC Baby Basket will also include a resource guide of information on the City’s newborn home visiting program, breastfeeding, post-partum depression, and more. These are critical resources for combating postpartum maternal mortality and increasing trust in government as well. Listen to Zohran discuss the policy on WNYC.
Zohran will implement free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high-quality programming for all families. And he will bring up wages for childcare workers – a quarter of whom currently live in poverty – to be at parity with public school teachers. It will foster early childhood development, save parents money, and keep families in the city they call home.
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Zohran will ensure public schools are fully funded with equally distributed resources, strong after-school programs, mental health counselors and nurses, compliant and effective class sizes, and integrated student bodies. He will create car-free “School Streets” to prevent traffic fatalities, improve play, and lower pollution for every school, and address student homelessness by expanding the successful Bronx pilot Every Child and Family Is Known.
Zohran supports an end to mayoral control and envisions a system in which parents, students, educators, and administrators work together to create the school environments in which students and families will best thrive, strengthening co-governance through the PEP, SLTs, DLTs, and CECs in particular.
Participatory school governance, including more inclusive, community-involved decision-making (parents, aides, educators), will give a voice to disabled students and their families.
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Freezing rent in rent‑stabilized housing helps maintain housing security for disabled tenants and people on fixed incomes, and a public inspection system and mandatory repairs (with city enforcement if landlords fail) will ensure homes are free from hazards, which is critical, especially for disabled residents.
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Eliminating bus fares and improving infrastructure (priority lanes, loading zones) will enhance independence for disabled riders.
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Zohran has a plan to bring down the cost-of-living through city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare, and other bold proposals, through a revenue plan that will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion.
He will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers (those earning above $1 million annually) a flat 2% tax. He will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion.
Democracy Manifest
When I turned 18 and registered to vote, the only reason I registered as a Democrat was because I wanted to be able to vote in the primaries, and in Connecticut, you have to be registered to a party to do such. I’ve always considered myself to be an independent thinker, and never understood allegiances to parties. I felt that if I had to register, my views tended to align more with the values that the Democratic Party said they represented; however, I knew if there was a Republican candidate I wanted to vote for, I’d change my registry to vote in the Republican primaries.
What I hope to have as a United States citizen is the ability to vote for the best candidate possible, not simply someone who represents the wealthy with no real interest in the people. In 2016, I completely lost hope that the Democratic Party stood for the things they claimed to. While I had hoped that they truly cared about supporting people, it was extremely obvious that they had chosen the candidate THEY felt would best represent their party, versus the candidate that the people wanted: Bernie Sanders.
Let’s talk about Bernie
Bernie Sanders, a formerly Independent Senator and self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist from Vermont, ran a campaign which stood for all the things that I valued and hoped to see for people in my country. He was focused on finance reform, income and wealth inequality, and increasing taxes on billionaires and corporations in order to fund free higher education at public universities, as well as a Medicare-for-All healthcare system. He spoke of implementing real family values, which included women having control over their bodies, paid sick time, paid vacations, and access to paid family leave. Unlike other major presidential candidates, Bernie created a grassroots campaign that received most of its funding directly from individual campaign donations.
His grassroots campaign began a movement that the Democratic Party, as well as the media, swiftly put an end to, as it did not serve their agenda. Seeing people so passionate about a genuine candidate who truly valued the foundations of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and then having it shut down simply because the wealthy found it inconvenient, made me lose any hope I had in our democratic system.
Being handed a candidate isn’t very democratic.
In this past election, Democrats once again didn’t have the opportunity to vote for the best candidate possible. Democrats never had the chance to vote for Kamala Harris in a primary; they were simply handed a candidate after Biden dropped out. This should never transpire in a true Democracy. A huge talking point the news media touts today is how the Republican Party repeatedly undermines democracy, but being handed a candidate is undemocratic too.
The Oligarchy
What we’re dealing with today isn’t democracy, it’s an oligarchy: the people who have money hold the power. The billionaire class points to everyone but themselves as the problem, and funds the media to divide and conquer the people, creating nonsensical culture wars to distract from the ownership they have over us. Yes, I say us, because unless you are a billionaire reading this, they own you too.
I firmly believe there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire. If you have acquired that much money, you are undoubtedly hoarding resources, and people are being exploited somewhere along the way. Those who love capitalism will argue that if you put a cap on income, it’s not capitalism anymore. But, suppose you capped it at 999 million dollars — the reality is that all the collective billions of dollars that people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Jensen Huang, etc., have, could feed the hungry, house the unhoused, improve the environment, and ensure everyone has healthcare; yet, billionaires stay selfish, donating money just to escape what little taxes they are obligated to pay. When we step back and look at this critically, it’s not really about political parties anymore; it’s a class war. Which leads me back to Zohran Mamdani.
Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.
On Tuesday, July 1, 2025, the President of the United States threatened to have Zohran arrested, stripped of his citizenship, put in a detention camp, and deported; not because he had broken any law, but because he refuses to let ICE terrorize New York City if elected mayor. Mamdani commented back that:
“His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy, but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation. That Trump included praise for Eric Adams in his authoritarian threats is unsurprising, but highlights the urgency of bringing an end to this Mayor’s time in City Hall. At the very moment when MAGA Republicans are attempting to destroy the social safety net, kick millions of New Yorkers off of healthcare, and enrich their billionaire donors at the expense of working families, it is a scandal that Eric Adams echoes this President’s division, distraction, and hate. Voters will resoundingly reject it in November.”
Ever since Mamdani won the mayoral primary, the wealthy, the media, and corporations are scrambling to discredit Mamdani and vilify this man in any way, shape, or form they possibly can. Why? Because they’re scared. Like Bernie’s movement, the rich and powerful fear when the public wants to hold them accountable for their fair share.
So why, as a Connecticut resident, am I concerned about the NYC mayoral election in November, and why should you be interested in it if you don’t live in NYC?
Because rebellions are built on hope. When candidates are backed by billionaires, there’s little hope of an underdog winning. Mamdani was the underdog in the primaries, as he did not have the billionaire backing that Andrew Cuomo did. But, NYC citizens showed up, voted, and said no more of the status quo. There is hope. Mamdani is rekindling the movement that Bernie ignited during his presidential campaign.
This movement, while small, can be the spark of hope that will light the fire that will burn down the Oligarchy (yes I am quoting one of the worst Star Wars movies, but its true). There is hope for a future where people can live in their own homes, have food in their stomachs every day, get easy access to healthcare when needed, and work a job that supports living and earning enough to pursue the American Dream.
Through rank-choice voting, educating the public about these platforms, and creating awareness about how everyone can benefit from policies like those Zohran is running on, NYC can start a larger, nationwide movement to put pressure on those in power. If you truly believe in bringing power back to the people, share this and start conversations about why small movements are not just important, but vital, in a democracy.
Disability Pride Month
Today, July 1st, is also the first day of Disability Pride Month. Seeing Zohran’s incredible branding by Forge inspired me to play on Mamdani’s name with my anti-nausea medication, Zofran. In a time when politics is absolutely nauseating, Mamdani feels like a dose of relief for my uneasy stomach.
If you or a loved one has disabilities and would like to see a healthier, brighter future where we can rely on the government to do what we pay them to do, then check out Zohran and his policies, and pay attention to what’s happening with the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Despite its name, the “Big Beautiful Bill” *(which is currently passed in the Senate as of July 1, 2025) will slash funding for vital public programs, including healthcare that disabled, elderly, and low-income people depend on. It also guts food assistance programs, clean energy, and more, while giving massive tax cuts to the rich. With a proposed $1.1 trillion in health cuts and 11.8 million people losing healthcare, it’s another example of how billionaires and corporate-backed politicians push cuts that hurt ordinary people while protecting the rich. Call your House representatives and tell them you oppose any legislation that slashes healthcare safety nets.
And finally, even if you don’t live in NYC, supporting candidates that keep people’s best interests in mind, rather than simply supporting the billionaires, we can start a movement to make positive change on a larger scale. As Karis Nemik said in Andor, “Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” The wealthy and powerful want us to believe they’re untouchable — but every movement, every vote, every conversation is a crack in that mask. Help be the change you want to see.
*UPDATE on July 3, 2025 at 4:38 PM EST — The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is officially passed in both the House and Senate, and it’s currently on its way to the President’s desk for his signature.
During Trump’s reelection campaign, he repeatedly promised Americans that he would not touch Medicaid benefits, the joint federal and state program that provides health care for more than 70 million low-income, elderly, and disabled Americans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this bill could add $3.3 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade and leave millions without health coverage. This bill also makes significant cuts to clean energy projects and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a food service program for low-income Americans.
On a personal note: Not that it’s anyone’s business, but I will volunteerly state that I have been on SNAP in the past. I would not have been able to feed myself without SNAP benefits at the time, even though I was working a full-time job. I was not lazy; I was not trying to cheat the system. I was working 40 hours a week with multiple disabilities, and my salary was not enough to cover my massive healthcare, rent, and living expenses.
I am also currently on Medicaid insurance. In CT, Medicaid is called “Husky”. States have different names for their Medicaid programs, and unfortunately, many people are not even aware that they will be losing their health coverage. While I should still be eligible for coverage as a low-income individual with disabilities, and am in a state where they have promised to continue coverage, that is not the case for everyone. If I lived in a state where this was not the case and I lost coverage, I would die. My seizure medication alone costs $28,000 a YEAR without insurance. The endometriosis surgery I had last November (2024) would have cost $68,000 out of pocket. As it is, on Medicaid, I still pay about $10,000 a year for out-of-pocket medical costs. In the past, while on private insurance, I paid as much as $20,000 a year on my health alone.
The cost of medical care for disabled individuals is astronomical and can eat up your entire income. It’s easy to not care about things if they aren’t directly affecting you, but no one should have to die because of a lack of medical coverage. The disabled community is the largest minority in the world that anyone could join at any time. This bill may not affect you right now, but it will, in some way. I will continue to cover this to the best of my ability, but I urge you to do your own research on this bill and the impact it will have on millions of Americans. We need to work together to create a better future for everyone. This is not it.
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Hi there! I am an artist & writer with disabilities, and I have been running this Disability & Art Blog unpaid for the past year — sharing personal stories, research, and resources to help others feel seen, informed, and empowered. While I love what I do, I also believe disabled people deserve to be compensated for their time, labor, and expertise. I’m currently crowdfunding to turn this into a sustainable, paid job — one that lets me focus on independent disability journalism, educational content, and artwork that speaks to the real lived experience of being disabled in America.
Help me keep the blog going and expand it into audio & video podcast formats to make it more accessible, engaging, and inclusive. With your help, I can write investigative articles, interview experts, and launch my podcast, Thank You So Much for Asking. Every contribution is meaningful and thoroughly appreciated. Thank you so much for your support! — Sincerely, Briana Raucci
A thank you to my supporters
Thank you to everyone who has donated to my GoFundMe campaign thus far! Your support truly means the world to me. I deeply appreciate that you see the value in this work and that you believe disabled voices, independent journalism, and accessible storytelling are worth funding.
Because of your generosity, I was able to make time to participate in this podcast and write this blog post. That may sound small, but for those of us juggling disability, advocacy, and creative work with limited resources, it’s everything. All the thanks to: Michael J. Harkey, James Miller, James Mcgee, Vicki Gelpke, Larry Gobel, Wendy Naratil, Taylor Macioci, Judy Petrillo, Stacey DeMartino, Jordyn DeMartino, Maddy Ullman, Joy Panigada, Judith Wilcox, and Lauren Raucci for making this possible!
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