Statement From Health Commissioner Barbara A. Debuono, M.D.
At the request of New York City officials, New York State will withdraw its application to the federal government for a Section 1915 (b) waiver to expand the existing successful Medicaid managed care demonstration project in Southwest Brooklyn to other areas of the city.
Both the State and the City have grave concerns about the prescriptiveness of the terms and conditions which the federal government released today in announcing its conditional approval of the New York City waiver. Those terms did not match what had been agreed upon in weeks of negotiations between representatives of the Health Care Financing Administration and negotiators for the State and City. I am distressed by these discrepancies and by the manner in which the terms were released today.
New York City will continue to actively work with New York State to secure federal approval for the State's statewide Medicaid managed care waiver program, in which the City will participate. Governor George E. Pataki submitted the statewide plan to HCFA last March and we have been waiting for approval ever since. We have answered in detail every question which has been posed to us by HCFA. This innovative plan, which includes special service delivery programs for the State's most vulnerable citizens (such as people with HIV/AIDS and those with chronic mental illness) is a solid blueprint for quality health care at an affordable cost. Almost half of the state's counties have already expressed interest in participating in this program.
Social Services Commissioner Brian Wing and I call upon the Clinton administration to make good on its pledge to give states the flexibility they need to design effective and reasonably priced health care programs to serve the Medicaid population.
10/27/95-120 OPA
Contact: Claudia Hutton, Director, Public Affairs (518) 474-7354New York State Department of Health Posted: November 14, 1995
