“We’re making the largest Medicaid rate increase in two decades, investing in hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers, all to stabilize our state’s health care system,” Hochul said Friday in a speech announcing the conceptual agreement.
The 7.5% boost that Hochul and state lawmakers settled on “falls well short of the minimum 10% increase the heath care community was seeking and sorely needs for many institutions to remain viable,” the Greater New York Hospital Association said in a memo to members Friday. Most hospitals statewide, 61%, posted operating margins in the black in their 2021 fiscal years, even after expenses related to COVID-19, according to afrom the Empire Center, a policy think tank. But there were major disparities. New York-Presbyterian reported an operating surplus of nearly $1.5 billion that fiscal year, while Montefiore Medical Center reported losses of $314 million, according to the report.