Legislative Bulletin: Preparing for Medicaid’s March Madness

In the face of a $2.3 billion shortfall, both conferences will begin finalizing their one-house budget’s next week. The first week of March will be a busy one, with a collaborative rally for health care and another advocacy day. The rest of March will be even busier, with the release of one-house budgets on March 13^th. Your participation in advocacy is critical in opposing the massive cuts targeted for long term care.

March 5^th Rally for Healthcare Providers of New York State

In response to the $550 million in new Medicaid cuts in the 2019-20 Executive Budget that would impact nearly all healthcare providers, the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) and partner associations have organized a rally.

If you are a Medicaid provider, we strongly encourage you to visit Albany and participate in the rally. With the active participation of healthcare providers and the collaboration between associations, we can send a powerful message of opposition to the state legislature and the Governor.

When: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 at 10 AM

Where: Convention Center, on the Concourse of the Empire State Plaza (map)

Click here to register, so we know you’re coming.

Click here for parking information. We recommend arriving early for easy parking.

Please feel free to contact Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org with any questions regarding the rally.

Attention Nursing Homes: See how the Executive Budget will impact your bottom line

On February 15^th, the Governor submitted 30-day amendments to his original State Budget that were designed to address an additional projected $2.3 billion budget gap identified since the State Budget proposal was developed. The amendments call for more Medicaid cuts that would not only eliminate the promised 1.5 percent add to nursing home rates but also cut Medicaid payments across-the-board. In combination with the case mix cut proposed in January, nursing homes are targeted for more than $400 million in cuts annually.

We need your help to defeat the catastrophic Medicaid cuts proposed for nursing homes. LeadingAge New York has created a Medicaid Cut Estimator, that now includes the additional cuts from the 30-day amendments. The file provides facility-specific impact estimates of these cuts. We urge members to be aware of the damage these massive funding cuts would have on their organization and to participate in sending a clear message to legislators and the Governor that they are unacceptable.

Right now, you should call your legislators and ask that they reject the nursing home case-mix cut and the .8% reduction. It is key that any budget related meetings or calls with legislators take place before one-house budget priorities pass on March 13. You can click here to find your legislators and call them or begin setting up a district meeting to share the potential impact of the proposed cuts on your organization.

March Madness – Where We Are in the State Budget Process

The New York State Budget Process establishes a budget that will fund the state from April 1, 2019 through March 31, 2020. Right now, we are in the thick of legislative action on the state budget, and over the next 4 weeks a complete SFY 2019-2020 budget will be finalized.

Later today, we expect the Legislature and the Executive to reach Consensus on the Revenues available for the FY 2019-2020 state budget. This consensus will give the legislature the final dollar amounts that they can use in their one-house budgets to restore any proposed cuts. We expect the one-house budgets to be finalized on or before March 13^th.

After the release of the one-house budgets, the joint Senate and Assembly budget committees will begin to meet and negotiate the discrepancies between their budget priorities to create a final budget to fund state programs.

This means that the month of March is crunch time for all budget advocacy efforts. There is a lot to be determined in the state budget negotiations, but one thing we know is that we need our LeadingAge membership to actively reach out to their lawmakers, bringing attention to our key issues and concerns. You can use our Schedule Guide to set up a call or meeting with your legislators. You can call your legislators and voice your concerns directly to staff. Anything you can do in these final weeks of budget action will help “move the needle” in the favor of long term care providers.

Right now, you can click any of the links below to urge your legislators to take action:

We also encourage you to share these links with your colleagues, staff, families, consumers and board members, asking them to share the messages that are most impacting your community. The more people bringing these issues to the attention of the legislature, the better. And don’t forgot the importance of sharing these messages on social media. Facebook and Twitter offer an opportunity to vastly expand our influence.

For more ideas and updates on LeadingAge New York Advocacy efforts, please visit our Advocacy Page.

Strength in Numbers - Register Now for March 5^th Advocacy Day!

Our second LeadingAge New York Advocacy Day is next week, and we need your help to send a strong message to the state legislature. Tuesday, March 5th, will be a day of grassroots advocacy focusing on housing, ACF/AL, and aging services issues. With a new majority in the Senate and dozens of new legislators, we need your help to educate lawmakers during the final month of State budget negotiations.

Register today for our March 5^th Advocacy Day You can click here to find your legislators. While it is likely too late to schedule a meeting, you may be able to catch them “off-the-floor” outside of the Senate or Assembly Chambers. You are also welcome to join one or more of the 31 meetings we have scheduled for the day.

Meeting Materials and other information about the day can be found here.

Careers in Aging Week

LeadingAge is partnering with the Gerontological Society of America, AHCA/NCAL and Argentum on a nation-wide Careers in Aging Week, March 3-9, 2019. The goal of the week is to allow member organizations to make students aware of the rich variety of jobs in the field of aging services. Click here to learn more and get involved!

LeadingAge Supports Bipartisan HCBS Bills Introduced by Key Lawmakers

Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Fred Upton (R-MI) have reintroduced legislation that permanently protect Medicaid recipients of home and community-based services (HCBS) against spousal impoverishment (H.R. 1343). Currently, spousal impoverishment protections in Medicaid prevent unnecessary financial harm in cases where one spouse needs long-term services and supports (LTSS) in a nursing home or an institutional care facility. A provision of the Affordable Care Act that required state Medicaid programs to apply these rules to HCBS long-term care settings expired on December 31, 2018. The Medicaid Extenders Act of 2019, enacted in January, included a 3-month extension to protect Medicaid HCBS recipients against spousal impoverishment, through March 31, 2019. LeadingAge supports this legislation and issued a statement:

“As a national organization, LeadingAge has consistently supported federal law establishing and continuing protections against impoverishment for all spouses of people who need Medicaid LTSS. We continue to do so, because we believe that spouses, providers and the Medicaid program will benefit from the certainty that this legislation will provide. Ensuring permanent protections for Medicaid recipients of HCBS against spousal impoverishment is crucial to the well-being of older adult recipients of HCBS and those who care for them”

- Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO, LeadingAge

Ami Schnauber, aschnauber@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8854

Sarah Daly, sdaly@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8845