Two-thirds of the states have cut Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded
health-care programs to help balance their budgets, according
to a study by a liberal public-policy group.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont are among
the 34 states that are changing eligibility standards, requiring
higher premiums and otherwise reducing tax-funded support
for health care, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
reported
Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno announced proposals
to limit the growth of state spending on Medicaid and other
taxpayer-funded health programs, the biggest contributors
to major fiscal problems facing the state, county governments
and New York City
Upstate
New York is home to the four highest city property-tax burdens
in the nation, according to a new study by the Greater Syracuse
Chamber of Commerce.
The
chamber studied 2001 Census Bureau data to rank metropolitan
property tax burdens in the top 100 metropolitan areas in
the country
The
steadily increasing costs of health insurance, a burden of
growing concern to employers, is driven to a significant extent
by Albany's hidden taxes on health care, according to the
sixth briefing paper in The Public Policy Institute's Tax
Watch '04 series
New
York ranked behind 45 of the other 49 states in population
growth from 2002 to 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau reported
today.
The
Empire State's growth rate, just below 0.3 percent, was less
than one-third that of the nation
Nearly 100 business and health leaders from around the state
attended a Business Council conference to discuss regional
health collaboration between businesses and health services
and how those collaborations can improve healthcare quality
and control costs
A new study by scholars from New York University and Stanford
University concluded that a stock transfer tax would make
shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) less liquid
while substantially slashing trading volume and it said such
a tax would make other trading markets more important at the
expense of the New York market, shrink New York Stock Exchange
listings, drive down New York’s overall market quality,
and increase market-wide volatility of stock prices
The
Business Council is reviewing three bills that would change
the way hospitals account for and spend taxpayers dollars
they receive for so-called "bad debt and charity care" cases.
The
Council has not taken a formal position on the bills (A
The
Business Council has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to exclude data from the Ocean County, New Jersey,
area in assessing how well metropolitan New York City complies
with a key federal environmental standard
A
top New York State health insurer has developed a brief paper
designed to explain to business leaders and individuals anywhere
in the country how health insurance premiums are spent and
how increases are calculated