Michelle Go died in 2022 after being pushed onto a subway track near Times Square by a stranger with mental illness. Her death raised new concerns about random acts of violence in New York City.

Now, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are proposing to increase access to long-term mental healthcare, in hopes of preventing people who need treatment from falling through the cracks.

Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman of Manhattan and Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island teamed up to introduce the Michelle Go Act, which would raise a decades-old limit on the number of inpatient psychiatric beds eligible for Medicaid reimbursement.

What You Need To Know

  • Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) are introducing the 'Michelle Go Act,' raising a decades-old restriction on inpatient psychiatric beds eligible for Medicaid reimbursement

  • Experts say that cap helped transform public mental healthcare into an outpatient oriented system — one that Goldman and Malliotakis argue is not fully working

  • Between April 2014 and December 2023, New York State has lost about a tenth of its inpatient psychiatric capacity, or about 990 beds
  • Go was killed after being pushed onto the subway tracks near Times Square in January 2022 by a schizophrenic man who had been in and out of hospitals for years and reportedly complained to a friend that doctors kept discharging him before he was stable

Currently, Medicaid is not allowed to cover long-term stays for patients aged 21 to 64 in facilities with more than 16 beds. Their bill would increase that restriction to 37 inpatient beds.

Experts say that cap helped transform public mental healthcare into an outpatient oriented system — one that Goldman and Malliotakis argue is not fully working. 

“There are insufficient beds for acute mental healthcare,” Goldman said. “There’s also an insufficient support process to transition people out of long-term mental healthcare.”

“People — instead of getting the treatment that they need — they are going back to jail, being re-incarcerated, or they’re showing up at emergency rooms. So it doesn’t make any sense,” Malliotakis said, likening the status quo to “a revolving door.”

Of note, between April 2014 and December 2023, New York State has lost about a tenth of its inpatient psychiatric capacity, or about 990 beds. As of December, the state had 8,457 beds available statewide, according to an analysis from the State Comptroller. 

The schizophrenic man who admitted to fatally pushing Go onto the subway tracks had been in and out of hospitals for years and reportedly complained to a friend that doctors kept discharging him before he was stable. 

In the long-run, the lawmakers hope that by increasing care options, their bill can help combat random acts of violence that have recently put the Big Apple on edge. 

“The thinking here is if we can tackle the mental health issues that so many more people are going through post-COVID that we’ll be able to reduce crime, but also reduce that feeling of insecurity that some people have in the city,” Goldman said. 

In a statement, Go’s father Justin praised the bill’s rollout, saying the legislation “is a critical first step in preventing future tragedies by fixing a part of the very systems that failed her.”

Both Goldman and Malliotakis expressed some optimism that, given the bipartisan nature of the legislation, their bill could get some traction in this Congress.