Updates: NYS Council Follow Up on MRT 2.0 Process, 3FOR5 CAMPAIGN, and Kids BH

February 12, 2020

Please Note:  In response to recent events, next week the NYS Council

will host two phone calls for our members to collect your thoughts and

ideas regarding the state’s call for cost-savings proposals for

submission to the state’s MRT II.  Stand by for dates and times.  No

registration required.

In the meantime, advocacy groups involved in our “3FOR5” Campaign have

been traveling to Albany from across the state, swarming the halls of

the state government, and attending hundreds of meetings with

lawmakers each day.  In the last two weeks, 10 regional/statewide

associations have held lobby days in Albany where a minimum of 30 and

a maximum of 155 meetings with individual lawmakers took place on any

given day.  We are all speaking with one unified voice as advocates

push hard for a significant infusion of resources to sustain the human

services sector!  See the latest 3FOR5 flyer and share it!

Finally, the NYS Council is actively engaged in advocacy to compel

lawmakers to reject any/all proposed decreases/cuts to programs or

services in the children’s BH system of care as New York continues to

implement the reforms associated with the children’s transition that

began almost 8 years ago.  This would include restoration of the CFTSS

enhanced rates that were discontinued on 12/31/2019.  Last week our

members met with 30 lawmakers representing districts from across New

York. Children’s BH continues to be a top priority for our

organization as we work alongside the HealthyMinds, HealthyKids

Campaign designed to address the well being and behavioral health

needs of our most vulnerable citizens.  We will not let up this fight!

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POLITICO’s Shannon Young:

The newly reconvened Medicaid Redesign Team officially began its work

Tuesday to identify $2.5 billion in program savings by mid-March — a

task that has inspired skepticism from health industry leaders,

advocates and even some lawmakers. The 21-member panel, announced as

part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget, held its first of

three public hearings at the Albany Capital Center on Tuesday. While

the hour-long event, which was interrupted by a brief protest, was

expected to offer insight into how the MRT II might close New York’s

Medicaid budget gap, many observers said they left the meeting with

few answers. Some were doubtful that the redesign team, to which

members were named last week, can meet such a tight deadline without

some behind-the-scenes work from the Cuomo administration.

… Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan)

was pointed in his criticism: “My belief is that the package the MRT

will produce was almost entirely written back in December and the

MRT’s function is to ratify it and tie it up in a nice ribbon with an

aura of being somehow the product of a wise and fair collective body,”

he said in an interview, adding that he didn’t “mean to criticize the

individual members of the MRT.” … Senate Health Committee Chairman

Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), who said he had to watch the hearing from

his office due to a cold, cast it as “another dog and pony show.”

… MRT II co-chair Michael Dowling, the CEO of Northwell Health,

brushed off concerns about the panel’s mid-March deadline, noting that

he and other panel members are well-versed in Medicaid policy and plan

to begin reaching out to various groups this week.