When a significant number of labor groups, coupled with the hospital and insurance industries, take a stance against legislation in Albany, that would usually be enough to stop the measure in its tracks. What is unusual about the New York Health Act is that it continues to be potentially viable, having passed previously in the state Assembly, and having gained a flock of Senate co-sponsors, said William Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
The Empire Center in October noted the global cap imposed on Medicaid spending by Cuomo and the Legislature in 2011, tying it to the medical inflation rate, has faltered amid loopholes and compliance issues. The state has postponed more than $1 billion in payments into the 2020 fiscal year. Read More
New York's Medicaid program is facing its own $4 billion deficit, first reported not by the Cuomo administration but a fiscal watchdog. The Empire Center for Public Policy reported this summer that the state played a fast game with its Medicaid expenses as the 2018-19 fiscal year reached its end. Instead of paying some 80,000 providers more than $1.7 billion it owned them, the state pushed that expense into April, where it was recorded in a new fiscal year. With that, the previous cycle appeared to be healthier than it was. It was a classic Albany gimmick. Read More
But critics like Bill Hammond of the Empire Center for Public Policy claim New York’s Medicaid deficit doesn’t come from a “shortage of revenue” rather “an excess of spending.” Read More
"It's a way for the governor to maximize his political gain," said E.J. McMahon, research director for the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank based in Albany. Read More
"Thanks to Medicaid over-spending, New York's state budget gaps have blown up to their highest levels since the Great Recession," wrote E.J. McMahon, founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. Read More
But Medicaid has been facing a growing deficit, one that was not so quickly acknowledged in public by the governor. It wasn't until the summer before a fiscal watchdog group, the Empire Center, found that the state last March, in the closing days of the state's fiscal year, rolled over $1.7 billion in Medicaid payments to some 80,000 providers, like hospitals, into April - and, thus, the start of a new fiscal year. Read More
When a significant number of labor groups, coupled with the hospital and insurance industries, take a stance against legislation in Albany, that would usually be enough to stop the measure in its tracks. What is unusual about the New York Health Act is that it continues to be potentially viable, having passed previously in the state Assembly, and having gained a flock of Senate co-sponsors, said William Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More