The Empire Center filed a pair of lawsuits this week charging the state Health Department with improperly withholding public records in violation of the Freedom of Information Law.
One suit seeks records relating to the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a costly and rapidly growing form of Medicaid home care that is being overhauled.
The second suit seeks detailed data on Medicaid enrollment over the past decade, which could help to explain how and why the program’s rolls have apparently grown millions larger than the eligible population.
In both cases, the Empire Center is represented by the Government Justice Center and its executive director and general counsel, Cam Macdonald.
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, known as CDPAP, is a form of home care provided through New York’s Medicaid health plan. It covers some 250,000 recipients at an estimated cost of $9 billion annually.
In a controversial reorganization, the Hochul administration is preparing to hire a single statewide “fiscal intermediary” to handle payroll processing and other CDPAP-related services, which would eliminate hundreds of companies performing those services now.
In May, the Empire Center requested copies of financial reports which the existing fiscal intermediaries have been required to submit to the Health Department since 2021. The reports would presumably shed light on how efficiently those companies have been handling the public’s money.
The Health Department has twice delayed providing the records, first to Sept. 16, and then to Dec. 30. That would be more than seven months after the original request – and two days before the contract with the newly selected fiscal intermediary is due to take effect.
In denying the Center’s appeal of its latest delay, the Department said it was “working diligently to audit the information, which is not finalized and, therefore, not ready for release.”
The Center argues in its lawsuit that the state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) does not permit agencies to withhold otherwise public records simply because they are unaudited.
The second case seeks a breakdown of Medicaid enrollment by each of the program’s income-and resource-related eligibility categories – in hopes of better understanding how enrollment has climbed to record highs even as poverty levels declined. The Center submitted that request under FOIL in May.
In September, the Health Department agreed to provide the records if the Center paid it $794 to cover what it said would be 20 hours’ worth of labor. More than two months after receiving that payment, the Department has provided neither the records nor a firm promise of when they will be delivered.
“The records requested by the Empire Center are unquestionably public and relate to matters of urgent debate – a massive CDPAP contract scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 and a more than $100 billion Medicaid budget that’s due on April 1,” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s Senior Fellow for Health Policy. “New Yorkers should not have to sue to get timely public information out of their own government.”
Medicaid Recipient FOIL Lawsuit
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.
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