November 5, 2025
How Medicaid’s New Work Requirement Will Work
Poor Americans will face new challenges to enroll, and states will have to build new bureaucracies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/upshot/medicaid-work-requirements-faq.html
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A Certain Kind of Politics Died with Andrew Cuomo’s Political Career on Election Night(New York Magazine, 11/5)
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/zohran-mamdani-ended-the-politics-of-andrew-cuomo.html?oref=csny_firstread_nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CSNY%20First%20Read%20-%20November%205%2C%202025&utm_term=newsletter_csny_firstread
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Zohran Mamdani’s Next Big Fight is in Albanyhttps://nysfocus.com/2025/11/05/zohran-mamdani-hochul-albany?utm_source=NY+Focus+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ed35ed60c1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_11_05_12_58&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-ed35ed60c1-1366328402
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NEW Mental Health Measures for Use of AI Now In Effect in NYS
(Politico, 11/5)
A first-in-the-nation package of safety rules for AI companions goes into effect today, putting New York on the forefront when it comes to addressing the mental health risks associated with chatbots that simulate human relationships.
The law, which was enacted as part of the 2025-2026 state budget, requires the operators of AI companions to implement a safety protocol for detecting and addressing user expressions of self-harm or suicidal ideation.
That means sending the user a notification about appropriate crisis service providers, including the 988 suicide prevention hotline.
AI companions will also have to provide a “clear and conspicuous” notification, either verbally or in writing, that the user is not communicating with a human. The notifications are required at the beginning of an interaction and at least every three hours during “continuing” interactions, although it is unclear how the state will calculate that.
“It is the responsibility of leaders to make sure that the innovative technologies shaping our world also protect those that use them, especially our young ones across the state,” Hochul said in a statement. “I look forward to working with companies and my partners in state government to continue to ensure that New York State remains a global leader in carving the path towards the future of responsible AI.”
To enforce the law, the attorney general’s office is empowered to seek injunctive relief and impose civil penalties of up to $15,000 per day. Any fines collected will help fund suicide prevention programs.
States have been moving faster and more aggressively than the federal government to regulate AI companions to safeguard users’ mental health, namely through requirements that they disclose that users are not communicating with a human.
New York’s law is reportedly the first to mandate a self-harm protocol, though a similar measure goes into effect in California at the start of 2026.
———————-A new Health Affairs study found that UnitedHealthcare pays its sister company, Optum, 17% more than non-Optum providers, and up to 61% more in markets where UnitedHealthcare controls at least a quarter of the market, fueling concerns that the company may be using vertical integration to skirt profit-limiting rules. Researchers from Brown University and UC Berkeley used federal price transparency data to show how UnitedHealth’s structure may enable it to “pay itself” for care, keeping profits within the conglomerate while meeting medical loss ratio requirements under the Affordable Care Act. The results add to growing scrutiny of UnitedHealth’s business model, which is already the subject of federal investigations into potential anticompetitive behavior and self-dealing. (Study here; Articles here and here)