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New York Finalizes $8B Medicaid Accord

April 18, 2014 by  

New York Finalizes $8B Medicaid Accord, New York State said it finalized an agreement with the U.S. government on Monday allowing it to reinvest $8 billion of federal money in its health insurance system for low income people while avoiding potentially painful cuts or additional budget strain.

Over the next five years, the state will keep the federal savings it makes by reforming its existing Medicaid program. The savings, slated to total more than $17 billion by the end of the 2014-2015 financial year, were identified by a group established in 2011 by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

New York state spending on Medicaid is among the highest in the country. The system of medical insurance for people on low incomes will cost around $58 billion in the coming year. In 2010, New York spent $8,910 per patient compared to a national average of $5,563, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation non-profit group that focuses on health care policy.

The federal government pays about half of that, meaning the issue has traction outside New York.

Cuomo hailed the agreement even though the waiver was $2 billion less that the state had originally requested.

“This waiver amendment allows us to invest these savings in keeping Brooklyn’s hospitals open, providing new community based primary care clinics in neighborhoods that need them and preserving health care services across our state,” Cuomo said.

New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, who campaigned against hospital closures in the city, called the waiver ‘a major milestone that will help break the vicious cycle of heedless hospital closures.’

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