Health Details Emerge from Final Budget

As the budget is finalized in Albany, details about how it will affect the health care industry have emerged — including a new tax on hospitals that will set up an insurance fund for lawsuits from birth defects, no office-based surgery tax for doctors and no increase in co-pay for many Medicaid patients.

Manhattan Assemblyman Richard Gottfried said the new fund for birth defects should help families pay for their medical expenses more effectively than in the past.

"We've put in language to make sure it will be a user-friendly system, easy for family to receive the benefits they're entitled to," Gottfried said.

Currently, when families sue hospitals, settlements are based on projected medical costs over the life of the child. Now, hospitals would pay a 1.6 percent surcharge on every birth to set up this fund – and that's what families would pay medical expenses out of.

Hospitals pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year on these lawsuits – and on malpractice insurance. They estimate the new fund could reduce costs by 20 percent.

Consumer advocates are waiting to see the final bill before commenting.