Cuomo Medicaid Proposals Draw Fresh Fire

Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposal to overhaul Medicaid is drawing new objections from different groups.

The Center for Justice and Democracy requested an investigation from the state’s Commission on Public Integrity.

Executive Director Joanne Doroshow alleges that the governor’s special panel on Medicaid Redesign had conflicts of interest, claiming hospital executives and consultants on the panel were effectively acting as "public officers" – yet they and their institutions stand to benefit from its proposal to cap medical malpractice claims.

"This was supposed to be a team to recommend Medicaid cuts," Doroshow said. "This proposal we're concerned about has nothing to do with Medicaid cuts. This has to do with letting hospitals off the hook for committing negligence."

Doroshow said if the special panel was going to discuss the judicial system, it should have involved groups representing consumers and legal advocates.

The governor’s office fired back a tart reply calling the allegations "absurd."

In a written statement, Jim Introne, Cuomo’s Director of Healthcare Redesign, said panelists "were not engaged as 'public officers' but as 'stakeholders' -- meaning they represented their own business interests in an advisory capacity."

The Commission on Public Integrity said it has received the complaint and is reviewing it.

The exchange came on the same day that the New York State Nurses Association launched a campaign asking Cuomo to "go slower," and reconsider several of the measures that add up to a $2.3 billion budget cut.

Shaun Flynn, NYSNA’s Associate Director for Governmental Affairs, said his union supports the overall package but is very concerned about some key provisions. He said a proposed cap on Medicaid growth  "a massive transfer of power from elected representatives to unelected bureaucrats and interest groups."

Flynn said the Nurses Association wants voters and state legislators to take a closer look the reform package and reject or modify certain parts.

NYSNA's advertising will run on radio and TV and in newspapers through the end of the month.

In previous years, loud campaigns by the state's largest health care groups have helped defeat attempts to rein in Medicaid spending.

This time, those groups – the Greater New York Hospital Association and SEIU-1199 -- have taken out ads supporting the governor.

NYSNA voted to support the proposed Medicaid reforms with those groups two weeks ago. But Flynn said NYSNA did so reluctantly – and only because the alternative was Cuomo's proposal to cut the entire state Medicaid budget across-the-board.