New York's Medicaid program, an "unwieldy" bureaucracy that costs more than $50 billion annually, has to be overhauled to accommodate growing need and implement federal health-care reform, the lieutenant governor said in a report Monday.
Federal, state and county governments split the cost for the program, which comprises about one-third of the state budget. Medicaid is the single largest driver of increasing budget expenditures at the state level, Ravitch said.
Between the 2009-10 and 2013-14 fiscal years, the cost of the program is projected to increase 27 percent, to $63.5 billion. An increased number of New Yorkers are expected to enroll in 2014 because of the new federal health-care
law.