draft-Winners and Losers: State Budget
The state budget isn't finalized, but agreements on key fronts were announced last night:
$350 in health care spending was restored (coupled with federal matching funds will bring a few more million to the health care industry here).
Eliot Spitzer still gets to claim $1 billion in Medicaid spending cuts, namely from health insurance and pharmaceutical companies (not hospitals and nursing homes).
$500 million in additional education spending was added, which should make Long Island Republican senators happy.
To hit the April 1 deadline, and circumvent the rule requiring bills to age for 3 days, Spitzer may have to send a "message necessity," a technique Pataki used often which left rank and file legislator voting on stuff they hadn't read.
I'm done blabbering.
-- Azi Paybarah
