March 11, 2025

Earlier we told you that both the Senate and the Assembly expanded the list of provider types and now (as per below) the Assembly also identified specific projects they want to prioritize that would benefit from the MCO Tax, should it be implemented here in NYS.   See attached document, and below information re:  the Assembly MCO Tax spending proposal in its one house budget bill:

The Assembly modified the Executive proposal to reinvest $1.4 billion in MCO tax revenue in their Aid to Localities bill as follows:

• $100 million in hospital outpatient rate increases, for a total of $405 million in hospital investments;
• $50 million in nursing home, assisted living, and hospice rates for a total of $250 million;
• $25 million to increase rates for clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers, for a total of $35 million;
• $16.5 million for children’s behavioral health investments
• $15 million in Certified Home Health Agency investments;
• $10 million to increase Early Intervention rates by 5 percent;
• $12.4 million to restore funding for prescriber prevails;
• $9.6 million for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) reforms;
• $7.5 million reduction in the physician fee schedule investments, for a total of $42.5 million, to account for spending associated with not including the elimination of the specialty physician independent dispute resolution (IDR) process;
• $5 million reduction in the Mainstream Managed Care Quality Pool investment, for a total of $45 million, to account for spending associated with not including the authorization of plan penalties; and
• $239 million reduction in the Global Cap offset to reflect the additional OSA spending reclassification.