Bloomberg
New York s closely watched pharmacy benefit carve-out has been delayed by two years under the state budget announced Tuesday evening by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assemblyman Carl Heastie.
Health centers and insurers were among opponents that celebrated the delay, saying it provided them more time to push for a complete repeal. They had been fighting the state s efforts to move Medicaid managed care s pharmacy benefit back to fee-for-service since it passed in the governor s budget April 2020. The carve-out would disproportionately affect safety-net providers participating in a 340B program, they said.
The passed health budget bill would implement the transition no sooner than April 1, 2023, instead of April 1 of this year, as proposed by the governor. It differed from the Assembly s proposal in March, which requested a three-year delay for the transition and a reimbursement fund for 340B-covered entities, and the Senate s proposal, which called f
With the delay, there is no need for the reimbursement fund at this time, said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, chair of the health committee. The governor proposed no delay, so two years is a reasonably good negotiated outcome.
Gottfried, however, recognized that 340B-covered entities still require assistance in providing services to their communities as the two years pass. I will continue to work on a mechanism to get the significant benefits of the carve out while still protecting the 340B providers and HIV special-needs plans, he said. While we would have preferred that the pharmacy benefit carve out be eliminated altogether, we are extremely grateful to our state legislators who fought hard for a delay because they understand the real-world harm it would have caused our patients, said Brian McIndoe, president and CEO of Ryan Health. The health center serves 50,000 members annually in the city nearly 90% of them are low income.
NY Assembly considering return to Albany for tax hike, Heastie says
Updated Dec 15, 2020;
Posted Dec 15, 2020
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie applauds as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks to members of New York state s Electoral College on Monday in Albany.Hans Pennink | AP Photo
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By Amanda Fries | Times Union, Albany
Albany, N.Y. At the Capitol for the Electoral College vote, state Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie told reporters Monday that legislative leaders are considering returning to Albany before the year’s end to approve revenue-raisers.
“We are trying to see if we can come up with something that the two houses could agree upon,” Heastie said. “We want to do something that (addresses the) eviction moratorium and we have to see if we can come to agreement on possible revenues.”