S4007C

The New York State Senate passed its $140 billion health and mental hygiene budget bill on a 41-21 party-line vote, advancing a spending plan that includes historic cost-of-living adjustments for human service workers but falls short of addressing all healthcare funding needs, particularly for hospitals and emergency medical services. Calendar 717, Senate Print 4007C, was championed by Health Committee Chair Sen. Luis Rivera as the best achievable through negotiation with the Executive and Assembly. The budget allocates $1 billion toward mental health services, including 850 new mental health beds and a task force to examine public health responses to mental health and substance use crises under Daniel's Law. It increases Medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals by 7.5 percent for inpatient services and 6.5 percent for outpatient services, totaling $395 million in additional hospital funding, and provides $216 million in increased reimbursements for nursing homes and assisted living programs. The bill includes a 4 percent cost-of-living adjustment for human service agencies—a 1.5 percent increase from the Executive's proposal but significantly below the 8.5 percent requested by advocates and the 9 percent inflation rate. Home care worker wages will remain flat for one year before resuming growth, pegged to minimum wage increases. The budget also includes reproductive healthcare protections limiting telecommunications companies from cooperating with out-of-state warrants seeking health data of abortion seekers, and establishes a Maternal Mental Health Workgroup with childcare reimbursement for participants. However, the bill rejected several Executive proposals, including EMS training programs, mobile integrated healthcare language, nursing task delegation flexibility, and criminal penalties for fentanyl analogue trafficking. Republicans criticized the budget for insufficient hospital funding given the 340B pharmaceutical carveout impact, inadequate COLA increases, and failure to address EMS provider crises. Democrats defended the spending as a measured step forward after 12 years of flat Medicaid rates and austerity budgets. An amendment by Sen. Lanza and Sen. Weber to increase the human service COLA to 8.5 percent was initially ruled nongermane but was revived when the Senate voted 21-0 to overturn the chair's ruling; however, the amendment did not advance to a final vote on the underlying bill.