Feds give NY’s $7.5B Medicaid waiver plan thumbs up
Leap for hospital aid and worker shortages
Federal regulators approved New York’s $7.5 billion Medicaid waiver plan aimed at addressing medical worker shortages, safety net hospitals’ financial struggles and health inequality.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services greenlight came as Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered a State of the State speech Tuesday, vowing in part to reduce the state’s tragically high maternal and infant mortality rates, while shoring up hospitals’ finances and addressing a mental health crisis.
The Democratic governor’s 2024 legislative agenda included sweeping proposals to overhaul New York’s health system, which spends about $300 billion per year but ranks among the nation’s worst in terms of quality and safety.
The Medicaid waiver plan included a range of plans for investing billions of tax dollars to improve the health and well-being of poor and low-income New Yorkers.
The total spending includes $6 billion in federal funds, with the state investing the remaining $1.5 billion. Among the investments:
● Spending up to about $3.2 billion on services that address health-related social needs, such as housing, transportation and environmental issues that fuel health disparities.
● Another $2.2 billion being spent to bailout financially struggling safety net hospitals in New York City and Westchester County, which serve high percentages of Medicaid patients.
● Investing up to $694 million to support health workforce recruitment and retention, including a student loan repayment program for some providers who commit to working at least four years in underserved communities.
● Some funding measures also support programs treating substance use disorders and mental health condi
tions.
State officials are also expected to adjust the plan to provide continuous Medicaid eligibility to children up to age six, federal records show.
That policy aims to support “consistent coverage and continuity of care” by keeping children up to age six enrolled in Medicaid regardless of income fluctuations or other changes that otherwise would affect eligibility (except for death or ceasing to be a resident of the state).
Some of the Medicaid spending also seeks to expand on gains from prior efforts in New York to form regional networks of health providers focused on reducing health disparities over the past decade.
That push, in many ways, has involved addressing health-related social needs, or social determinants of health — the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and qualityof-life outcomes and risks.
Some of those efforts have included home-delivered medically tailored meals, food pharmacies, housing navigation, eviction prevention, social isolation intervention, high-risk maternity engagement, and pediatric asthma education and removal of triggers.