Gov. Andrew Cuomo has selected the 21 health care industry and government officials who will create a plan to find $2.5 billion in Medicaid savings in the next fiscal year, which begins April 1.
The redesign team is being called in because the state’s roughly $75 billion Medicaid program had been a key contributor to the state’s projected $6 billion budget gap. The Cuomo administration cited the minimum wage increase to $15 and higher costs in home care for the elderly and chronically ill as among the drivers of higher Medicaid spending.
“The Medicaid system has to be fiscally sustainable,” Cuomo said during his budget address last month. “If it is not financially sustainable, then we accomplish nothing.”
Now it will be up to leaders of hospitals, unions, insurers, health care nonprofits and government officials to make recommendations to the governor.
Cuomo has instructed the team to impose zero impact on Medicaid beneficiaries and zero impact on local governments.
That largely leaves solutions that will make health care services more efficient—or less costly.
The group’s first public meeting will be Feb. 11, and it will submit its findings and recommendations to Cuomo and the state Legislature in March ahead of the budget deadline at the end of that month.
The members of the Medicaid redesign team are:
Co-chair: Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health
Co-chair: Dennis Rivera, former chair of SEIU Healthcare
Dr. Steven Corwin, president and CEO, New York Presbyterian
Thomas Quatroche, Ph.D., president and CEO, Erie County Medical Center
LaRay Brown, CEO of One Brooklyn Health
Mario Cilento, president of New York state AFL-CIO
Christopher Del Vecchio, president and CEO of MVP Health Care
Pat Wang, president and CEO of Healthfirst
Emma DeVito, president and CEO of VillageCare
Wade Norwood, CEO of Common Ground Health
Steven Bellone, County Executive, Suffolk County
T.K. Small, director of policy at Concepts of Independence
Donna Colonna, CEO, Services for the UnderServed
Todd Scheuermann, secretary of Finance, state Senate
Blake Washington, secretary of Ways and Means, state Assembly
Paul Francis, deputy secretary for Health and Human Services, governor’s office
Dr. Howard Zucker, commissioner of health
Dr. Ann Sullivan, commissioner for the Office of Mental Health
Arlene González-Sánchez, commissioner of the Office of Addiction Services and Supports
Dr. Theodore Kastner, commissioner of the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities
Robert Megna, senior vice chancellor and COO, SUNY