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By: Ellen Cans
Executives of New York City’s hospitals donated generously and almost exclusively to Democrats in the 2024 election cycle.
Health care and reproductive rights have become a big factor in the campaigns this election season, per campaign finance data. As such, the CEOs of NY hospitals personally contributed roughly $275,000 into state and federal campaigns. As reported by Crain’s NY, of those funds, over $57,000 has gone into state races, including 25,000 to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s committee for her 2026 re-election campaign, per records kept by the state Board of Elections. Most of the remainders of the state-level contributions went towards general Democratic funds.
As expected, and as previous election cycles, the hospital CEOs who make political donations, are shunning Trump in favor of Democrats, as they support Democratic candidates who would continue to support the Affordable Care Act. Interestingly though, most of the healthcare and pharmaceutical CEOs avoided donating directly to Vice President Kamala Harris over the final stretch of the 2024 campaign. A lot of the healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical CEOs favored giving to statewide campaigns or to companies’ political action committees, per STAT.
Per Crain’s, the heftiest individual political donor in NY’s healthcare sector was by far, Philip Ozuah, President and CEO of Montefiore Medicine. He donated some $130,000 since January 2023. His biggest donations, totaling $29,900, benefited the victory fund of Congressmen Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat who serves several of Montefiore’s neighborhoods, as per data kept by the Federal Election Commission.
He also donated $25,000 to Empire State Strikes Back, a political action committee which supports NY Democrats for Congress. He has also donated to several other Democratic committees, New York congressional campaigns and state legislative races, including $10,000 to the NYS Democratic Committee, $9,900 to elect Democrat Tom Suozzi for Congress on Long Island, and $6,600 each towards the campaigns of Reps. Adriano Espaillat, Jamaal Bowman and George Latimer.
The next highest contributor in the sector, paled in comparison, contributing about half what Ozuah gave. Robert Grossman, the CEO of NYU Langone Health, donated about $65,000 in total, of which $25,000 went to the Schumer Majority Committee, which supported Democrats in swing states. He gave another $18,000 to Hochul’s reelection committee for 2026. The remainder went to committees of Democrats in Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Around $2,500 went to the PAC of the law firm Greenberg Traurig, per state records.
Per Crain’s, the next top contributor was Steven Corwin President and CEO of New York-Presbyterian. Cowin donated close to $39,000 to state and federal Democrats, including $5,800 to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ coffers, and $5,000 each to Hochul’s, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s and the New York Majority Fund, which backed Gillibrand and other Democratic committees. He also gave $5,000 to the state and federal PACs of the Healthcare Association of NY.
CEO Kenneth Gibbs of Maimonides Medical Center donated roughly $23,000 to Democratic campaigns, mostly for state congressional races, including $2,000 to Hochul’s committee and $1,000 each to Jeffries, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Crain’s reported. He also contributed $8,000 to the Healthcare Association PACs, and another $5,000 to the Kings Country Democrats.
As per Crain’s, Michael Dowling, the President and CEO of Northwell Health, the state’s largest health system, contributed over $20,000 mostly to Democratic congressional races in NY, including $13,200 to Jeffries’ campaign. He also donated $4,500 to Democrats running for Congress on Long Island and $1,500 to the Healthcare Association PACs.
