Gov Cuomo to Schumer: It’d be Nice if He Actually Passed a Piece of Legislation that Helped the State of New York

After the Coronavirus Stimulus Bill passed the Senate Wednesday, NY Gov Andrew Cuomo (D), called it “irresponsible” and “reckless”. Today, he voiced frustration over another bill that recently passed and that he felt New York Sen Chuck Schumer (D) didn’t do more for his state in either bill.

I say to Senator Schumer, it would be nice if he passed a piece of legislation that actually helped the state of New York.

Gov. Cuomo: “I say to Senator Schumer, it would be nice if he passed a piece of legislation that actually helped the state of New York.” pic.twitter.com/PnWqABfQlP

— ALX ?? (@alx) March 29, 2020

Cuomo: The piece of legislation he passed stopped the state from a process that was happening for 6 months which was redesigning the medicaid program to make it more efficient and more effective. It was called the Medicaid Redesign Team. I announced it back in January. It was the second time we did it. It takes waste and fraud out of the system. The legislation he passed said you can’t redesign medicaid, for what reason I have no idea, so it disqualified this state from funding and he knew that when he passed it.

At the end of the clip, a reporter pushes back.

You have the choice, you could either take the additional $6 billion and pause the MRT which is worth $2.5 billion.

The federal package, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 18, set aside $6.7 billion in Federal Medical Assistance Percentages for New York. That amount included $5.3 billion for the state, $1 billion for New York City and $436 million for counties, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer‘s office.

The state’s MRT II, was tasked with identifying $2.5 Billion in State Medicaid Savings. It was supposed to accelerate the strategies of MRT I that he claims proved successful for the last nine years while creating course corrections in order to ensure financial sustainability to the Medicaid program.

This article from November 2019 mentioned that New York faced budget deficits between $6 billion and $8 billion over the next three years amid ballooning costs for Medicaid.

His frustration with Schumer over the Coronavirus Stimulus bill comes from the fact that the $5 billion included in the bill for the state hardest hit by the Coronavirus is “earmarked only for COVID virus expenses, which means it does absolutely nothing for us in terms of lost revenue for this state.” He said the lost revenue from an essentially shuttered economy is “the bigger problem.”