New enrollment numbers from the state-run health insurance exchange confirm a trend relevant to budget talks in Albany: The role of local governments in signing people up for Medicaid is smaller than ever. Read More
Latest
Albany police are among the latest group of workers benefiting from the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision. Read More
Ruling in favor of the Empire Center, a state Supreme Court judge in Albany has ordered the Cuomo administration’s energy and environmental agencies to release a supposedly incomplete "comprehensive study" of how to meet the governor's aggressive renewable energy goals. Read More
Virginia Democrats are poised to legalize collective bargaining for government employees. In November Democrats brought Richmond under their total control for the first time in more than a quarter-century. The new legislative majorities seem intent on ignoring the painful lessons of New York state’s half-century experiment with government unions. Read More
You’ve got to hand it to New York State United Teachers: the union maintains a remarkably straight face while arguing that the nation’s highest-spending schools and best-paid teachers are starved for funding. Read More
Chris Kendall of Madison County and Jacob Rieper of Columbia County are the DeregulateNY contest grand prize winners. Both nominated an antiquated state law requiring new limited liability companies (LLCs) to buy ads announcing a “notice of organization” for six weeks in two local newspapers, one weekly and one daily. This routinely adds several hundred to several thousand dollars to the cost of starting a business. Read More
The 11 proposals, summarized in the table below, were submitted to Governor Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team at a public comment forum on Friday at the Albany Capital Center. The Medicaid Redesign Team, appointed Feb. 4, is tasked with finding $2.5 billion in Medicaid savings to balance the state budget due April 1. Consistent with Cuomo’s guidelines, Hammond’s proposals would have no impact on current beneficiaries or local governments. Read More
New York could reduce its Medicaid costs by more than $3 billion under proposals released today by the Empire Center's director of health policy, Bill Hammond. Read More