Federal officials have reportedly confirmed that they are cutting off a major portion of funding for New York’s Essential Plan, opening a roughly $1 billion hole in the state budget and raising new doubts about the future of a rapidly growing health insurance option for the working poor. Read More
A bill requiring health plans to cover digital breast tomosynthesis, a three-dimensional type of mammography, has been delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office for his signature or veto. If the measure is enacted into law, it would be a classic case of healthcare politics rushing ahead of medical science. Read More
For a second consecutive year, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) has deeply slashed the amount of renewable energy that utility companies are forced to buy under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Clean Energy Standard (CES). The move casts further doubt on the governor’s goal of having renewables supply 50 percent of the state’s electricity by 2030—while reinforcing the CES program’s status as primarily a bailout for money-losing upstate nuclear plants. Read More
The Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill heading to a possible vote next week would appear to be more costly for New York State in the long term than previous GOP repeal-and-replace plans. Read More
This month’s setbacks for New York’s healthcare system were largely driven by flaws in the ACA, not by attacks on the law from President Trump or Republicans in Congress. Read More
A technical change in how Medicare compensates hospitals for treating the poor and uninsured has drawn a heated response from Governor Andrew Cuomo that demands clarification. Read More
If President Trump follows through on a threat to halt Obamacare’s “cost-sharing reduction” program, New York has more to lose than almost any other state. Read More
State legislators have taken their mania for insurance mandates to a new extreme: They’ve passed a bill that arguably accomplishes nothing other than covering unnecessary mammograms. Read More