What's happening
This bill establishes an enhanced safety net hospital program to increase Medicaid funding and support for hospitals serving large uninsured or Medicaid populations.
Why it matters
Targets funding to hospitals with high Medicaid/uninsured populations. By defining “enhanced safety net hospitals” based on strict thresholds (e.g., 50% Medicaid/uninsured patients, less than 25% commercially insured), the bill ensures that increased funding goes to institutions serving the most vulnerable.
Aims to stabilize essential healthcare providers. The legislation directs the health commissioner to adjust Medicaid rates specifically to support the ongoing operation of these hospitals, which are often at risk of closure due to financial strain from serving low-income patients.
Shifts financial responsibility to the state. The bill explicitly removes any local (county/municipal) funding requirement for the enhanced payments, making the state fully responsible for the non-federal share and potentially easing local government budget pressures.
Includes broad eligibility, covering both public and rural hospitals. The definition extends not just to urban public hospitals, but also to critical access and sole community hospitals (often rural), recognizing their unique challenges and importance in underserved areas.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Fund Safety Net Hospitals
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
11 Co-sponsors
History
- Substituted by S5661B
- Ordered to third reading rules cal.506
- Rules report cal.506
- Reported
- Reported referred to rules
- Reported referred to ways and means
- Referred to health
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Fund Struggling Hospitals Statewide
Vetoed · Sponsor Betty Little
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
7763
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
May 15, 2017
Introduced by M. of A. GOTTFRIED, JONES, COLTON, LIFTON, STECK, MOSLEY -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. WEINSTEIN -- read once and referred to the Committee on Health
AN ACT to amend the public health law, in relation to establishing the enhanced safety net hospital program
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 2807-c of the public health law is amended by adding a new subdivision 34 to read as follows:
34. Enhanced safety net hospital program. (a) For the purposes of this subdivision, "enhanced safety net hospital" means a hospital which:
(i) in any of the previous three calendar years, has met the following criteria:
(A) not less than fifty percent of the patients it treats receive medicaid or are medically uninsured;
(B) not less than forty percent of its inpatient discharges are covered by medicaid;
(C) twenty-five percent or less of its discharged patients are commercially insured;
(D) not less than three percent of the patients it provides services to are attributed to the care of uninsured patients; and
(E) provides care to uninsured patients in its emergency room, hospital based clinics and community based clinics, including the provision of important community services, such as dental care and prenatal care;
(ii) is a public hospital operated by a county, municipality, public benefit corporation or the state university of New York; or
(iii) is federally designated as a critical access or sole community hospital.
(b) The commissioner shall adjust medical assistance rates to enhanced safety net hospitals for the purposes of supporting critically needed
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD11742-01-7
A. 7763 2
health care services and to ensure the continued maintenance and operation of such hospitals.
(c) Payment of the non-federal share of the medical assistance payments made pursuant to this subdivision shall be the responsibility of the state and shall not include a local share. Payments made pursuant to this subdivision may be added to rates of payment or made as aggregate payments to eligible general hospitals.
§ 2. This act shall take effect April 1, 2018.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.