A state oversight board this week is set to green-light a $486 million payment to the SUNY Polytechnic real estate subsidiary that is at the heart of the federal probe into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion initiative. Read More
Category: Blog
New York’s health plans are pressing for dramatically higher premiums in 2017, a sign of financial turbulence in the insurance markets for individuals and small businesses as the Affordable Care Act enters its seventh year. Read More
Hillary Clinton’s endorsement of a Medicare “buy-in” for older Americans who are under 65 raises the question of whether it would actually be a good deal for the people it is supposed to help. Read More
A study by researchers in the state Health Deparments, just published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, documents widespread use of prescription opioids in New York. Read More
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli just issued a set of fiscal reform proposals designed to address the continuing lack of accountability and transparency in key areas of New York's budget. While by no means representing a fiscal panacea, they are solid ideas, deserving of broad public and legislative support. Read More
Albany’s practice of doling out millions in “bullet aid” to certain school districts at the behest of favored legislators has become a familiar ritual of pork-barrel politics. But a little-noticed provision of this year’s budget directs $30 million to a single nursing home in the Bronx, which is unusual even by the standards of New York State government. Read More
New York's 2 percent local property tax levy cap has passed another important legal test, prevailing in the state's mid-level appeals court over a constitutional challenge from the state's largest teachers' union. Read More
Governor Cuomo’s $15 minimum wage plan will cost the state’s Medicaid program more than $100 million over the next two years, according to figures in a budget analysis released Wednesday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Read More