By Kenneth Lovett
Monday, December 21st 2009, 8:48 AM
Would the national health care reform bill be good for New Yorkers?
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson Monday declared that New York is being "punished" by the national health care bill expected to be voted on by Christmas.
New York stands to lose between $1.1 billion to $1.25 billion a year if the bill is adopted unchanged, Paterson told Buffalo's WBEN-AM radio.
Even though the goal of the legislation is to get as many people insured as possible, Paterson complained that New York is hurt by already having provided government-funded healthcare to a larger share of its residents.
Under the bill, he said, other states are being rewarded by enlisting more Medicaid recipients.
"New York can't do that, we're at the limit," he said. "We are, in a sense, by the bill being punished for our own charity.
"If this bill is encouraging the idea of having fewer people needing health insurance, then you would think that since New York already complied with that standard, we would get some equitable benefit for doing what Washington is doing now."
He said that New York Massachusetts and Vermont were the hardest hits states by the legislation, but "sweetners" were added in recent days to help those other two states.
The Medicaid plan, he said, has long hurt New York because it reimburses states based on per capita income as opposed to the poverty rate.
While New York's poverty rate is 25% of the national average, its per capita income is among the highest, Paterson said.
He also reiterated that New York sends far more tax money to Washington, D.C., than it gets back than any other state, including California, which has twice the population.
"Washington really has got to be more fair with New York State, which has been the bailout package for the rest of the country for the past decade," he said.
The U.S. Senate in a rare late-night session Monday morning voted along party lines to move the bill forward. A final version of the bill is expected to be approved by Christmas.
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