STAFF REPORTS
news@allwnynews.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Chris Collins issued a statement today regarding Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reaction to his plan to prevent New York State from billing its counties for Medicaid costs.
Collins’ amendment to the American Health Care Act, the Medicaid Local Share Limitation, would bar federal reimbursements for New York State Medicaid funds raised from local governments — aside from New York City.
Cuomo had released figures that tallied how much hospitals in John Faso’s 19th congressional district (Faso co-sponsored the Collins amendment) in the Hudson Valley would lose if the American Health Care Act is approved, finding $13.6 million in cuts for the more than dozen facilities. He also said the Collins amendment would require other statewide tax increases to make up the nearly $7 billion the state gets from counties in Medicaid funding.
Collins’ press release follows in its entirety:
“Governor Cuomo and his sidekick are using doomsday predictions to scare everyday New Yorkers into allowing Albany to continue taxing them to death. It’s absolutely disgusting the Governor would threaten the middle class with a tax increase, while holding a $14 billion taxpayer funded slush fund in his back pocket. As I have said before, if this Governor can’t find 1.5% to save in his budget, I am more than willing to find it for him.” — Congressman Chris Collins.
Facts
Governor Cuomo himself attempted to shift costs of Medicaid. The difference between the Governor’s proposal and the one introduced by Congressman Collins is that instead of saving hardworking taxpayer money, Governor Cuomo’s sole intention in forcing New York City to foot the bill to fund of his out of control Medicaid program was to increase the size of his taxpayer funded slush fund.
The Collins-Faso amendment would save county governments billions of dollars.
Currently, New York State raises $7 billion from counties to fund its $27 billion Medicaid liability. Of that, $2.3 billion comes from outside of New York City, and would be subject to the amendment. In total, New York spends $60 billion per year on Medicaid. This amount of spending is second in the nation only to California, which is home to almost twice as many people as New York.
New York spends 44% more per Medicaid beneficiary than the national average ($10,426 v. $7,236), second only to Massachusetts in highest spending per full beneficiary in the nation. Additionally, while the state is home to only 6.5% of the national population, New York accounts for 11% of total Medicaid spending. By passing Medicaid costs onto counties, New York State is not realizing the financial impact of its out-of-control Medicaid policy, causing more spending on the program.
The following outlines the FY16 Medicaid liability for NY-27 counties:
· Erie: $203,699,556 (82.8% of the property tax levy)
· Niagara: $44,152,519 (59.0% of the property tax levy)
· Orleans: $8,074,102 (49.8% of the property tax levy)
· Wyoming: $5,321,747 (25.7% of the property tax levy)
· Livingston: $9,064,064 (34.1% of the property tax levy)
· Ontario: $16,033,295 (30.2% of the property tax levy)
· Monroe: $175,851,749 (48.6% of the property tax levy)
· Genesee: $9,403,509 (35% of the property tax levy)
· NYS Total: ~$2.3 billion (44.3% of the county property tax levy)
More stats about how outrageous the county share of New York’s Medicaid program is can be found below:
Medicaid Fact Sheet: https://fasoforms.house.gov/UploadedFiles/MedicaidFactSheet.pdf
NYS Medicaid Costs by County: https://fasoforms.house.gov/UploadedFiles/NYSCountyMedicaidCosts.pdf
