Facing billions of dollars in shortfalls in its Medicaid program, New York state is looking to save millions.
The Empire Center for New York State Policy noted a 1% reduction in most Medicaid payments was announced on New Year’s Eve via the Dec. 31 edition of the New York State Register. The move will save the state about $52 million from January through April, which is the last quarter of the state fiscal year, and another $248 million in the 2020-21 state fiscal year.
“That’s about 3% of the amount Cuomo has said he intends to cut before the end of March,” Bill Hammond, Empire Center executive director, wrote in a Dec. 31 blog post on empirecenter.org.
The rate cut applies to the vast majority of Medicaid spending, including payments to hospitals, nursing homes, doctors, pharmacists, home-care providers and Medicaid managed-care plans.
New York has a $4 billion Medicaid deficit in its 2019-20 budget which state officials plan to close by cutting $1.8 billion in spending and pushing $2.2 billion into future fiscal years. The Medicaid gap is projected to increase to $6.1 billion in the 2020-21 budget.
The governor and state budget officials have blamed Medicaid overruns on the state’s minimum wage increase for health care providers, cuts in federal funding and increases in enrollment and costs for long-term care.
“The biggest problem for the state is the enormous, recurring structural budget gap starting next year and into the future,” said E.J. McMahon of the conservative-leaning Empire Center. “Cuomo clearly hopes that starting in 2021, (Democratic presidential candidate Joseph) Biden and a Democratic Congress will provide states and local government a couple of year’s worth of added stimulus. Read More
Ed McKinley
ALBANY — When the New York Constitution was reorganized nearly 100 years ago to give the governor more power over the budget process, noted there was a risk of making “the governor a czar."
M Read More
Michael Gormley
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Johan Sheridan
ALBANY, N.Y. () — The Empire Center filed a against the state Department of Health on Friday.
“This case isn’t about assigning blame or embarrassing political leaders,” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s Read More
The Empire Center first reported Tuesday that grants — 226 of them, totaling $46 million, to recipients selected by the governor and individual state lawmakers — seemed to still be going ahead. Read More
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“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
No doubt, the Health Department and the governor would like this report to be the final word on the subject.
But if it’s all the same with them, we’d still like a truly independent review. Read More