Month: January 2024

Governor Hochul on Saturday signed an innocuous-sounding bill to “regulate the use of automated decision-making systems and artificial intelligence techniques by state agencies.” But the “Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-making in Government,” or LOADinG Act, wasn’t about protecting New York from self-aware computers trying to wipe out humanity. Instead, it was an early Christmas present for the state's public employee unions—and a lump of coal for New Yorkers hoping for more efficient state government. Read More

A legislative hearing into spending by the state’s sprawling energy agency featured a surprise guest who offered sober warnings about Albany’s energy policy. Read More

Public employee unions complained loudly when New York's state government workforce shrank during the coronavirus pandemic, using that decrease as pretext to press Governor Hochul and state lawmakers for more hiring and costly giveaways to benefit their members. But the latest data show nearly every state agency has more employees than it did a year ago, and that by at least one key measure, the state workforce is larger than it was before COVID. Read More

A billion-dollar Medicare windfall for upstate hospitals has turned into a crisis for upstate health insurers that's threatening to disrupt coverage for millions of New Yorkers. Read More

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. Read More

Governor Hochul’s plan to mail $500 checks to millions of households has a problem: the sales tax “surplus” she wants to dish out doesn't exist. Read More

    In this episode of Messages of Necessity, Empire Center Senior Fellow for Health Policy Bill Hammond unpacks his latest report, Medicaid Overdose: The Excessive Growth of State-Sponsored Health Coverage in New York. Bill explores Read More

Join us for our upcoming ThinkNY webinar, where we’ll explore a groundbreaking analysis of New York’s Medicaid program and its growing challenges. Empire Center Senior Fellow for Health Policy Bill Hammond will walk us through Read More