Your Weekly Dose of Health March 13, 2015

State Senate and Assembly Released One-House Budgets.

The Assembly budget provides $700 million in capital funding for Brooklyn’s healthcare system. They disagree with the governor on allowing private equity to invest in hospitals. In addition, they eliminated the governor’s value-based payment proposal for healthcare providers dealing with insurers. Read more here. Also, here’s a link to the Assembly’s budget fact book. The healthcare items are bulleted beginning on page 44-1.

The Senate agrees with the governor on letting private equity groups invest in hospitals. In addition they eliminated a tax on health insurers that the governor included as a way to pay for New York’s health exchange. Interestingly, the Senate included a paid family leave provision. Here’s a link to the Senate’s fact book.

Affordable Care Act

The CBO found that the ACA costs less than initially thought.

The Harvard paper Crimson Review writes that Law School professors think that the Supreme Court will uphold provisions of the ACA now under question.

Health Care Advocates Push for Prescriber Prevails

Patient advocates expressed anger at the governor’s efforts to eliminate prescriber prevails in his budget. Prescriber prevails is restored in both the Assembly and Senate budgets.

DiNapoli on Medicaid

Comptroller DiNapoli issued a report saying Medicaid spending will grow by $700 million per year. The report did find that we’re making progress on controlling costs.

Ben Lawsky on Health Care

Department of Financial Services superintendent Ben Lawsky wants to change the way insurers make payments to doctors and providers. He wants to move the state away from the current fee-for-service healthcare model. Alternative payment methods are being discussed with a group of “stakeholders”.