GOP-led congressional investigators on Tuesday urged the Obama administration to block Gov. Cuomo’s request to reallocate $10 billion in federal Medicaid funds until New York pledges to pay back billions of dollars it over-billed in prior years.
“We urge you to ensure taxpayers are justly compensated for decades of Medicaid overpayments received by New York state prior to the approval of this pending waiver,” Housing Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
The investigations panel issued a report last year that claimed New York overcharged the feds $15 billion in Medicaid reimbursements between 1991 and 2011.
The controversy centers on the state overbilling the Medicaid program while providing care to a dwindling number of patients at state-operated centers for the developmentally disabled.
“The government has a responsibility to provide a safety net for individuals who truly need public assistance,” said the letter, co-signed by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and James Lankford (R-Okla.).
“However, New York’s Medicaid program has fostered a system that over the past two decades has wasted vast sums of our nation’s limited resources. Powerful special interest groups, cronyism and political corruption in the state have largely contributed to the New York Medicaid program’s unchecked growth and have made program reform exceedingly difficult.”
Cuomo, who inherited the problem when he came into office, and his administration has worked with federal regulators to begin correcting the overcharges and rein in abuses.
Cuomo said state actions since he became governor have generated $17 billion in federal Medicaid savings, and New York wants to reallocate $10 billion — through a federal waiver — to bolster medical care and implement ObamaCare.
The feds reduced Medicaid payments to New York by $1.2 billion last year to begin addressing the issue.
The governor’s plan calls for expanding primary care, protecting or restructuring “safety net” facilities such as Long Island College Hospital, hiring and training more doctors and implementing strategies to reduce hospital readmissions.