Gov. Kathy Hochul’s first budget is poised to include what some health care advocates consider long overdue investments in the sector, including a 1% across-the-board boost to the rates Medicaid pays health care providers and a cost-of-living pay increase that would benefit those working with people with mental illnesses and disabilities.
However, Hochul also caught flak for not fully funding two key proposals in final versions of the budget, as lawmakers seek to wrap up voting on Friday. Those measures had vocal support from coalitions of legislators and activists. One was a higher minimum wage for home health workers and the other was state-funded health coverage for low-income, undocumented immigrants.
Hochul remained at odds with advocates over these proposals throughout the budget negotiations and faced criticism from some as talks concluded late this week. But she is winning praise for expanding support for some mental health initiatives, including for more psychiatric beds.
On Thursday evening, state Senator Julia Salazar, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn, tweeted, “This state budget is unacceptable. It fails to prioritize the needs of working people and excludes our undocumented neighbors from access to services that the rest of us enjoy.”
Salazar went on to slam Hochul for using state funds to subsidize a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills, while declining to provide the full $345 million requested by the #Coverage4All campaign to extend health coverage to those...
(AP) If a government hopes to function, it has to be able to enforce its laws. Our country is no exception, and in fact, the U.S. government is very good at enforcement. So when a big fraud case c...