Metro

It’s sick as hail

Millions of New Yorkers uptown and in the outer boroughs are being denied the right to legally hail a livery cab because of a political fight over an obscure health issue, The Post has learned.

Mayor Bloomberg’s hard-fought taxi-expansion bill is being held hostage to a battle with the Cuomo administration over whether the city is entitled to share in the proceeds when EmblemHealth, the health-insurance giant created by the merger of GHI and HIP, converts from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, sources said.

The deal has been authorized under state law and could throw off $1 billion or more to the government — funds desperately needed by both the cash-strapped city and the state.

Bloomberg and city unions are laying claim to part of the windfall, arguing that most of Emblem’s enrollees are city workers and it’s the city that’s paying their health-care premiums.

The state is trying to determine if Emblem can be sold after it becomes private and quietly sought bids last week. But the auction was a bust because of uncertainties surrounding the city’s next move.

One source said the mayor and municipal unions here are threatening to dump Emblem as the city’s chief health insurer, which would scuttle the conversion, unless they get either some of the sales money or a guarantee that the city’s health-care bill won’t soar when Emblem’s status changes.

An insider involved in the talks to expand livery-hail service to the outer boroughs said all sides had signed off on a deal that was to be announced last Wednesday, when “all of a sudden everything fell apart without a clear explanation. Everyone was scratching their heads, including legislators.”

The source said that, the next day, the Emblem issue surfaced out of the blue as a completely unrelated — but critical — sticking point.

“It’s now very much part of the jigsaw puzzle,” the insider said.

The taxi bill, which passed the state Legislature in June, would allow a fleet of livery cabs to accept street hails in northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs.

An official close to Cuomo conceded that “several issues including EmblemHealth remain on the table” with the mayor.

But the official insisted, “There’s no linkage to a deal on EmblemHealth and the taxi bill.”

A Cuomo spokesman put out a statement last night saying the governor was calling a “summit” to resolve outstanding issues.

Spokesmen for both Bloomberg and Cuomo also released a joint statement: “The state and the city always deal with numerous issues at the same time and currently are working cooperatively on several major issues.”