New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed 774 bills into law and vetoed 114 in 2023, according to New York State Senate’s website. Below are just a few laws from the 2023-2024 legislative session that will take effect over the course of 2024:
• Effective April 1, 2024, all state-regulated insurance providers including Medicaid must provide coverage for biomarker testing when deemed medically necessary for diagnosis, treatment, appropriate management, or ongoing monitoring of a patient’s disease or conditions. Biomarkers are signs of disease or abnormal function often used when caring for a patient with cancer, the law states; a biomarker test analyses a patient’s tissue, blood, or other bodily fluid for the presence of a biomarker.
• The minimum age to operate an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) will be raised from 10 to 14 years old, effective Jan. 1, 2024. All riders 14 years or older must complete a safety course and be issued a safety certificate in order to operate an ATV. Additionally, the law prohibits any person under the age of 16 from operating an ATV on any land unless it is owned or leased by their parent or guardian without supervision of someone 18 years or older.
• The New York state minimum wage will increase to $16 per hour in New York City, Long Island County, and Westchester County and increase to $15 per hour in the remainder of the state effective Jan. 1, 2024.
• Legislation aimed to reduce accidental drug overdoses, called “Matthew’s Law,” will go into effect in January 2024. The law authorizes licensed pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, or other health care facilities to dispense drug testing supplies to members of the public in order to test substances for fentanyl, the law states, but restricts the number of tests that can be distributed to five per transaction.
Fentanyl overdoses made up 87.8% of opioid deaths in the United States in 2021, the law states, and is now the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 – “ahead of suicide, COVID-19, and car accidents, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”
• New York state colleges will be required to post campus crime rates on their website in addition to other measures geared towards hate crime investigations and prevention, effective January 2024. While campus crime rates must be available on a college’s website, the law will also require colleges’ advisory committee members to review and revamp policies and procedures around educating students and faculty about bias-related and hate crimes, reporting hate crimes, and assisting victims. College administrations must adopt and implement a plan for investigations of hate crimes, and establish a plan for educating students on bias-related and hate crime prevention measures.
A full list of new legislation signed during the 2023-2024 legislative session can be found here.
