00:00Yes, thank you very much. Governor Hochul, according to Medicaid.gov, New York State's per resident outlay for Medicaid is 24% higher than any other state and 77% higher than the national average for states.
00:17First of all, could you tell me why is that? And haven't we ought to be using this time to maybe get our own house in order instead of just complaining about what's going on in Washington?
00:32No, we're not just complaining. We actually are. I've actually a year ago undertook. You look surprised, Dave.
00:38No, I'm trying to hear, man.
00:39Okay, okay, okay. All right, that's all right. You can get closer if you want. Okay. A year ago, I undertook a reform to look at areas where we can have cost savings.
00:49I'm looking forward to getting those results. I agree. There's always areas where we can look for cutting, whether there's been abuse.
00:54In fact, we had a program called the CDPAP program, which I think everyone's got a lot of coverage to, which was a program where we were spending, started out with $1.5 billion,
01:06and it escalated to $9 billion recently, and I asked why. This is over the last decade. Well, it turns out there were individual companies that were abusing and skimming the system.
01:16People were giving themselves payments of $2 million. So that's an example of the kind of waste, fraud, and abuse that I am also going after.
01:24We also have an older population of people who are high needs. Many times, and there are actually people literally who go to Florida after they retire when it's time for serious medical attention,
01:37where they want helps. They come back to the state to be near families. So elderly individuals are coming back. So there's a lot of factors involved.
01:45We're aware of the cost. I'm very cost-conscious, and I want to make sure that we can do what we can to resolve that.
01:50But also, this is going to be painful, what is happening. These are cuts which will be difficult to sustain, and as we've described,
01:58there'll be 1.5 million New Yorkers without health care. That will drive people to the emergency rooms for what otherwise would be routine visits,
02:07and that's going to escalate the cost for our health care systems, especially in rural areas.
02:12A place like Niagara County and others are going to have severe impacts.
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