Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Well you see how nice Sanda Lee was to me, do you know why? I just endured 500 miles of a backseat driver like you have no idea. It has redefined backseat driver, I didn't even think of it for a motorcycle. "Move left, move right, slow down, speed up." I just wanted to get off that motorcycle and when you're in the front you really can't respond, just only using words you knows, it is like talking to yourself because you aren't face to face. Let's give Sandy a big round of applause. Jacquie thank you for sharing your great story and what you have done for the community, thank you. To your dynamic Mayor who is just knocking the ball out of the park every time he gets up to bat, Byron Brown a pleasure to be with you. Kathy Hochul is just doing a great job all across this state.
You know you are here every day and I come and go but it is amazing the change in this city and I don't know that you feel it but as an outsider, if I had to describe this to anyone ten years ago they would have said it was impossible, but you feel it throughout the entire city. You feel resurgence, you feel the renaissance, you feel the energy, you see the smiles, it is a beautiful thing and congratulations to all of you for remaking this city and remaking Buffalo into a world class city. God bless you and for everything that you do.
Before we talk about the purpose of today, the past few days have been unfortunate and ugly days for this nation and there is no doubt that over the past few months there has been a tension and there has been an anger in the air. There has been frustration but what we have seen over these past few days is truly frightening and when you see what happened in Louisiana and that violence, when you look at what happened in Minnesota and then Dallas yesterday. 12 police officers deliberately shot. It is as frightening as it gets because the only thing this country has to worry about is itself. The only person who can defeat this country is this country. It's only Americans who can hurt America, and what they are doing is, what the hate mongers are doing, what the negativity is doing is its taking our strength, which is our diversity, and it's trying to make it weak, and it's trying to divide us when we are all about unity. It is a fight that each of us has to lead in our own way. We are proud as New Yorkers to be the laboratory for the American experiment of democracy. We know diversity like very few states know diversity. We are proud of it. We are proud that we have people from all across the globe and we make one community out of people from all across the globe, so we have no patience for racial divisions and the violence we have seen.
The other thing we know is that the people in this country are at their best when things are at their worst. These past few days have brought us near a point where things were are at their worst. Another monument to this nation when things were at their worst is the 9/11 site, and we're going to light the One World Trade Center building tonight at the 9/11 site red, white and blue as a reminder to this nation that we are not black, white and brown. We are red, white, and blue, and those are the only colors that matter.
My colleagues from Albany, we finished the legislative session, which goes from January through June. We had a very productive one, one of the most productive sessions that this state has ever had. We did a lot of good things. We cut taxes for the middle class to the lowest level in seventy years, believe it or not. We gave hard-working New Yorkers a break. We invested more in education than ever before in history, more in economic development. What number did you use, Mayor? $5.6 billion? I don't think Buffalo needs any more money. I think we'll put some of that money back in the bank, but we're going to fund more economic development across Upstate New York because it is working. Upstate is turning around, unemployment is about half what it was just six years. It is a renaissance for all across Upstate New York, so we did a lot of good work.
But one of the initiatives I am most proud of, of all time, is what we are talking about today, because this is going to save lives. There is no state in the nation that has passed a piece of legislation like what we have done for breast cancer and sometimes good things come from bad situations. Sandy went through a hellacious year, as Jacquie, as have 15,000 women in this state every year. 15,000 new cases of breast cancer every year and they just keep adding up and dealing with breast cancer as a woman is terrible. Dealing with breast cancer for the family is terrible, and it is life-changing, and you wonder why did God do this. Why? In Sandy's case, no family history. She's a young woman. Why put someone through this? Why all of this pain? But I believe everything for a reason and I believe there is a force bigger than us. Otherwise none of this makes sense. And I had a heck of an education myself going through it with Sandy and one of the first things the doctor said to us, when he was talking about the diagnosis, never left me.
He said, "Well Sandy was lucky because she was diagnosed early and when you are diagnosed early, it is a different situation." And I looked at the numbers, and it is a dramatically different situation whether you are detected early or late, and it could literally mean the difference of life and death, whether it is early or late. But what he said was, "She is lucky that we found it early," and I remember saying to myself, "Why should it be a matter of luck? Why should anyone be unlucky? Why wouldn't we just make sure everyone gets tested and screened early so everyone catches it?" You know, this is the State of New York. We can do anything. Why don't we make sure we always catch it early? And any woman who develops breast cancer -- we are going to find it. So we spent time trying to find out what the obstacles were. About 40 percent of the women who should be getting screened do not get screened. 40 percent. That is a frightening number. And asking women, "What were the obstacles?" It came down to the usual two: time and money. They do not have the time. They are raising families. They are working. They are busy and the hospitals and clinics are closed when they are available. This law changes the hours of operation of hospitals and clinics, every hospital, every clinic has to be open 4 more hours a week, after 5:00 p.m., and on the weekends. And the second obstacle was money, because New Yorkers now have health insurance. But you still have to pay a deducible, or a co-pay or a lump sum annual deductible but people still pay, and the economy is very tough. I don't want to spend my family's money on a test that I am not sure that I need. Because the economic pressures are that real.
What this piece of legislation does is it forces the insurance companies to waive any co-payment or deductible payment so the screenings are 100 percent free to the women and any follow up testing that comes from the screening is also done free. So, there is no reason not to be screened. The hours have changed. It will be done at your convenience, there is no cost, there is no reason not to be screened -- and that is what today is all about. Government has done everything it can -- and I am so proud of this legislation, one of the nice things about the state of New York is that when you pass a long that helps New Yorkers it is very often a model for the nation. I can't tell you how many laws we passed that went all across the country when they saw what we did, this is going to be one of those laws and it should be one of those laws because women all across the nation should go to their government and say, "why don"t you do the same thing they did in New York? Change the hours and make the insurance companies actually pay for a service rather than just get premiums."
So I am excited about this, but the first step still has to be that the women come forward and go for the screening. Government has its limitations and this is all about trying to get out the word. We sat on that motorcycle for 500 miles, I got directions every half an hour as to what I was doing wrong. I bit my tongue for 500 miles, I could barely talk I bit my tongue so long. A woman said to me two days ago, she saw me on the motorcycle, she said, you know, "I don't think Governors are supposed to ride motorcycles." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yeah, I've never seen a governor on a motorcycle before." I said, "Good, did it get your attention?" She said, "Yes." I said, "That's exactly the point."
That is exactly the point. We have to get the message out to women -- get screened. Husbands should tell wives, sisters should tell sisters, sons should tell their mothers, friends should tell friends -- get screened, please. It can literally be the difference in life and death and let's make this state a model state where a fatality from breast cancer is a thing of the past and not a thing of the future.
I want to thank all the riders, we had hundreds of motorcycle riders out there who went through a thunderstorm, who got drenched, who got dried in the sun. Sam Roberts, our commissioner from OTDA -- 500 miles and still smiling.
I want to thank all the police that helped us. The Erie County Sheriff, the Buffalo Police, the Amherst Police and the State Police who did a fantastic job. God bless you, thank you for helping us get the message out.