Does Gov. Cuomo have a beef with the health-care industry — or does he just see it as a well of limitless cash?

It’s a fair question, because in his new budget, Cuomo repeatedly singles out the industry for tax hits. And they’re not even likely to solve New York’s budget woes.

For starters, he wants a cut of the proceeds from converting nonprofit health insurers to for-profit companies. He’s expecting $750 million annually for four years.

Yet, as Citizens Budget Commission President Carol Kellermann notes, the switch­overs may never happen, or may not generate the hoped-for dough. Plus, the state’s using the money to cover outlays that don’t stop in four years. So the same budget hole will return then.

Then there’s his 14 percent tax on profits by insurers — who, he argues, “just got a 40 percent windfall profit” from federal tax reform. So it’s “totally justifiable to have a [state] tax to recoup part of their windfall benefit.”

Translation: If Uncle Sam hands out tax savings, New York wants part of it.

Yet the gov spares non-health firms from that 14 percent tax. True, he hits all businesses by denying them various existing tax credits through 2020. (Hey, they “got a 40 percent tax cut.”) But they should consider themselves lucky compared to insurers.

Here, too, New York will see a shortfall by 2021 when the credits phase back in (and when Cuomo hopes to move into the White House).

Finally, the gov wants to tax opioid-based drugs, supposedly to pay for “prevention, treatment and recovery services.” But as the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond notes, spending for such services is slated to remain mostly flat. In fact, he says, the new revenue will cover Medicaid costs that have soared, thanks in large part to Cuomo’s spike in the minimum wage — which will cost the state an extra $703 million in the coming year, or 2 ¹/₂ times the level projected when the gov hiked the minimum in 2016.

And if all of Cuomo’s budget gimmicks and tax hikes aren’t alarming enough, Hammond has more bad news: The side effect from all this will be to “drive up the cost of private insurance.” New Yorkers always pay in the end.

You may also like

Policy analyst: Cuomo wrong to write-off nursing home criticism as political conspiracy

“The importance of discussing this and getting the true facts out is to understand what did and didn’t happen so we can learn from it in case this happens again,” Hammond said. Read More

The good, the bad and the ugly in Cuomo’s budget

“We are at the early stages of what shapes up as the biggest state and city fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “Borrowing and short-term cuts aside, the budget doesn’t chart any clear path out of it.” Read More

Editorial: Cuomo’s problematic Medicaid maneuvers

“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the fiscally conservative Empire Center, told The Times. Read More

Gov. Cuomo’s Lawsuit on Pres. Trump’s Tax Cuts Dismissed

But according to the Empire Center, a non-profit group based in Albany, the overall impact of the Trump tax cuts actually benefited most state residents. Read More

NYS Healthcare Costs Rise Amid Report Of Pay-To-Play Allegations

Earlier this year, another fiscal watchdog group,  The Empire Center, found that  Cuomo’s budget office had delayed a $1.7 billion Medicaid payment from the previous fiscal year into the current fiscal year. Because of the delay, the governor was able to keep within a self imposed 2% yearly spending cap. Read More

After Hospitals’ Donation to New York Democrats, a $140 Million Payout

“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” said Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the nonpartisan Empire Center who first noticed the budgetary trick. “The governor was able to unilaterally direct a billion dollars to a major interest group while secretly accepting its campaign cash and papering over a massive deficit in the Medicaid program.” Read More

More New Yorkers covered by health insurance: report

An analysis by Bill Hammond of The Empire Center for Public Policy said the continued drop bolsters the case against the Albany Legislature passing a new law imposing a state government-run health insurance, which Democratic candidates for president are pushing for on a national level. Read More

What Cuomo’s executive order on vaping will and won’t do

“If you have these really young kids and teens getting hooked, then that’s not good," said Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy. "But the first step would be to do some research, have a public hearing, get the best expert evidence that you have. Instead of reacting to headlines, find out what’s really going on and proceed with proposed regulations.” Read More