Kudos to David Paterson for acting like — well, like a governor.
And, in the process, getting the Legislature to do the seemingly impossible: enact $385 million in permanent cuts to the state’s staggering — and unsustainable — health-care spending.
Typical Albany: The only way the Legislature would make those cuts is when the alternative was shutting down the entire state government.
So, little steps for little feet.
Paterson included the reductions in “emergency” legislation needed to keep the government operating for another week in the absence of a state budget — now 70 days overdue.
It includes cuts to hospitals, public-health programs, nursing homes, home care and managed-care services.
Dramatic? Sure.
But necessary, given that New York faces a $9.2 billion budget hole this year — and heaven only knows how much in 2011.
The bill also requires the state to find another $391 million by cracking down on Medicaid fraud. All told, though, it’s less than the $822 million in health-care savings Paterson originally proposed.
Not surprisingly, the folks in no small way responsible for out-of-control health-care spending over the past decade are crying in their champagne.
“We have been unfairly misused and abused as the primary means to resolve a systemic state fiscal crisis,” whined Daniel Sisto, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State.
“We feel like we have a gun to our head,” moaned Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater NY Hospital Association.
“It is outrageous that a financially struggling health-care community that has already suffered seven rounds of state cuts . . . would be singled out for such pain,” huffed George Gresham, president of Local 1199, the health-care workers union.
To hear them tell it, Paterson wants to load old and sick people onto ice floes and float them down the Hudson.
We’ve been hearing that song forever — and it’s simply not true.
Indeed, the health-care cartel has pretty much gotten whatever it’s asked for from its bought-and-paid-for minions in the Legislature.
Like the infamous 2002 deal that resulted in billions going to hospitals — to cover the costs of an expensive new labor agreement with the union. Then-Gov. George Pataki signed off on that one, in return for 1199’s political support.
As for those seven years of “cuts,” the only thing that’s been cut is the rate of growth in New York’s highest-in-the-nation Medicaid spending.
Of course, Raske and Sisto have some good reasons to be worried about real cuts. Millions of them, in fact.
In 2008, Sisto’s members paid him $846,017 in salary and benefits — a nearly 80 percent hike since 2004, according to IRS documents.
As for Raske, in 2008 he was paid a staggering $3,154,084 — an increase of 277 percent in just four years.
So much for this all being about the patients and the workers.
Next up?
Paterson has also promised similar cuts for schools and local-government aid in upcoming “emergency” bills.
It’s a good start, governor! Keep it up.