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Congress & White House: Renew the COBRA premium subsidy!

Posted February, 16 2010 by arianne

Last year, the stimulus bill (ARRA) created a COBRA premium subsidy for workers who lose their jobs. Laid-off workers who qualify only have to pay 35 percent of their COBRA premiums, and the federal government pays the rest. The subsidy has been a huge success – one study found that the percentage of laid-off workers […]

Governor Nixes Fiscal Accountability for Charity Care Funds

Posted February, 11 2010 by arianne

Despite fiscally dire times, Governor Paterson retracted his call for greater accountability for the nearly $1 billion in payments issued to hospitals for charity care in his 21-day amendments. Two years ago, New York enacted a law that required hospitals to show that 10% of charity care funding went to provide care to real patients, […]

Consumer Advocacy in Health Reform–We Can Make A Difference

Posted January, 27 2010 by arianne

A new report by Community Catalyst, Building on the Foundation: Consumer Advocacy’s Role in Successful Health Care Reform, looks at how advocacy efforts–such as HCFANY–have influenced the federal health care reform. Advocates have raised their voices to make sure that legislation makes health insurance more affordable, provides greater consumer protections in the health insurance market, […]

New York's Executive Budget

Posted January, 26 2010 by arianne

On January 19 Governor Paterson released the Executive Budget, with cuts/saving in the health area totaling $1.9 billion. Medicaid Matters of NY has provided an overview–Read it here. The Children’s Defense Fund of New York–a HCFANY member–has done an analysis of the how the budget affects children: Click here to read the the summary of […]