New York State Crosses the Streams: Nation's Most Expensive Medicaid Program Is Among Bottom Five In Quality of Care

Aren't Blue States fun?

A $9 billion state budget gap in the next fiscal year, combined with few new tax revenues and the prospects for property tax relief, leaves no palatable choices for how to balance the state's budget. To no one's surprise, Medicaid, where combined state, local and federal spending of $50 billion is the equivalent of a third of the state's all funds budget, looms as a prime focus for reducing state expenditures...

...New York's program has long been called "the Cadillac" of Medicaid programs. It spends the most of any state on Medicaid and the most per Medicaid enrollee, especially on its elderly enrollees. Yet, there is little proof that the quality of care is any better than in other states' programs... A recent study by CareChex, a medical quality rating service, placed New York in the bottom five states on overall quality of care ratings.

...in fiscal year 2007 New York's Medicare program spent $8 billion more than California's on long-term care, despite California having millions more elderly enrollees in its program...

When do we get to that Utopia the liberals are always promising us?