Scrutiny about New York State's Medicaid program continues

The Wall Street Journal reports on the program's fraud unit while KHN explores the plans for New York's plans to revamp the entire program.

The Wall Street Journal: Medicaid Fraud Unit Falls Short
The state agency in charge of recovering money stolen from the state's $52 billion Medicaid program fell into negative territory in 2009. For the first time, it returned more money in fraud cases to Medicaid providers than it brought back to the state. The Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, which has a $90 million budget and a full-time staff of more than 650 people, reported fraud recoveries of minus $66,000 in its most recent annual report. The inspector general collected more than $1 million from fraud cases, but the agency lost more than that sum after an administrative law judge ordered the state to return fines paid by a Queens alcohol treatment center accused of fraud in 2005 (Gershman, 1/27).

Kaiser Health News: Assessing Cuomo's Efforts To Cut N.Y.'s Medicaid Budget
KHN staff writer Aimee Miles interviews Courtney Burke, who directs the New York State Health Policy Research Center at the Rockefeller Institute, about Cuomo's plans for revamping the system (Miles, 1/27).