A plan by New York Governor George Pataki to eliminate the 2.5% inflation adjustment in Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals would result in an annual loss of $431 million in revenue to the state’s 229 hospitals, according to a Healthcare Association of New York State report cited in Newsday. The report said that Pataki’s reforms of New York’s Medicaid system--the largest in the nation--would force hospitals to lay off employees and would plunge 20 struggling hospitals into the red.
