New York Lawmakers Clash Over Medicaid as Budget Deadline Nears
March 30 2020 - 9:47AM
Dow Jones News
By Jimmy Vielkind
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Lawmakers and unions criticized Gov. Andrew
Cuomo for pushing ahead with a plan to reduce Medicaid spending as
part of the state budget due Tuesday even as New York responds to
the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Several Democrats who control the state Senate as well as labor
and progressive groups warned that cuts to the program, which
provides health care to more than 6 million New Yorkers, would be
devastating. They urged Mr. Cuomo to accept federal money approved
earlier this month and to tax the wealthy rather than making
cuts.
"It's absolutely insulting and it's just wrong," State Sen.
Julia Salazar, a Democrat from Brooklyn, said of the Medicaid
changes during a Sunday press conference. She said they would hurt
poor patients and hospitals on the front lines of responding to the
epidemic.
The Medicaid issue emerged as a late flashpoint in the budget
after the virus shut down large segments of the economy and state
tax receipts cratered. The Democratic governor's budget office
predicted state revenues were somewhere between $9 billion and $15
billion below the $88 billion projected in February.
"The problem with the budget is the numbers," Mr. Cuomo said
Sunday. "I'm not going to pass or sign a phony budget."
The governor said he didn't support raising taxes. He proposed a
$178 billion spending plan in January, but has acknowledged in
recent days that circumstances have changed to the point that it is
basically moot. A planned 3% increase in the amount of state aid to
public schools is now in doubt, he said.
However, Mr. Cuomo said he was forging ahead with a plan to
reduce spending in the state's Medicaid program by $2.5 billion.
The state approached its new fiscal year with a $6.1 billion
deficit, largely driven by Medicaid cost overruns. Mr. Cuomo filled
the gap mostly by assuming higher revenues as well as $2.5 billion
in savings from a so-called Medicaid Redesign Team of industry
stakeholders.
The team's recommendations include decreasing the reimbursement
rates the state pays for hospitals and nursing homes, as well as
changes designed to slow the growth of a long-term-care program in
which sick or disabled New Yorkers hire assistants to help them at
home.
State officials have looked to Washington for help with the
budget, but the governor said there were provisions in the second
coronavirus stimulus bill approved by Congress that would block the
redesign team's proposals, as well as his plan to shift more
Medicaid funding responsibility back to New York City and the
state's other counties.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that second
stimulus bill would provide up to $6 billion a year in additional
Medicaid funding for New York. Mr. Cuomo blasted Mr. Schumer, a
Democrat from Brooklyn, for agreeing to the provision.
Mr. Cuomo and his budget director, Robert Mujica, said they
believed the federal aid might be closer to $4 billion and that
they would rather push ahead with the redesign team's
recommendations.
"It takes waste and fraud and inefficiency out of the system,"
Mr. Cuomo said. "I have no choice. Two-and-a-half billion per year
recurring is worth more than $6 billion one shot."
New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a
Democrat from Yonkers, said in a television interview last week
that she believed the redesign team's proposals were conceived
before the coronavirus pandemic and should be revisited. American
Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union
includes members in New York, said she was surprised by Mr. Cuomo's
position.
"Right now, what's more important is to keep everybody afloat.
It's puzzling to me," she said.
A third federal stimulus bill included $5.1 billion of direct
aid to New York to cover costs associated with the coronavirus. Mr.
Cuomo again said the measure left New York shortchanged because it
did nothing to alleviate the state's vanishing revenues.
Given the uncertainty, Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Stewart-Cousins and
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, all said they were discussing budget
language that would give the governor the power to unilaterally cut
state spending if its receipts didn't materialize.
Write to Jimmy Vielkind at Jimmy.Vielkind@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 30, 2020 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)
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