As Governor Cuomo pleads for financial help from Washington, one of his state's programs is sitting on $3 billion in unspent federal aid: the Essential Plan. Read More
Tag: Essential Plan
The balance of unspent money in the Essential Plan Trust Fund ballooned to a new high of $1.2 billion as of March 31, records from the comptroller's office show. The surplus more than tripled since the same time last year – even as the Trump administration disrupted federal aid for the program, which provides health coverage to low-income New Yorkers, and the Cuomo administration diverted $635 million in Essential Plan funds to subsidize struggling hospitals. Read More
The state's Essential Plan has amassed a nine-figure surplus due to unexpectedly generous federal funding, records from the Office of the State Comptroller show. Read More
Health coverage gains under the Affordable Care Act were concentrated where they were needed most—among lower-income groups and in the five boroughs of New York City—recently released Census Bureau data show. Read More
It turns out the state is receiving way more federal aid than it needs to pay for the program—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year—thanks to an out-of-whack formula in the Affordable Care Act. Read More
Here’s another health care cut that Albany can stop worrying about: Despite losing $1 billion in federal funding, the state’s Essential Plan is actually expected to run a hefty surplus—which the Cuomo administration is using to plug budget holes. Read More
After many dire warnings about cuts to health care in Washington, it’s worth noting that federal funding for the state’s massive Medicaid program is still on track to go up, not down, in the year ahead. Read More
Governor Cuomo’s budget makes no major change in the Essential Plan—a low-cost state-sponsored health plan—despite the loss of almost $1 billion in federal aid. Read More
"Readers will recall that the Empire Center is the think tank that spent months trying to pry Covid data out of Mr. Cuomo’s government, which offered a series of unbelievable excuses for its refusal to disclose...five months after it sued the government, and one week after a state court ruled that the Cuomo administration had violated the law and ordered it to come clean—Team Cuomo finally started coughing up some of the records." -Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2021
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