Examining Federal Health Reform on New York State

Passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) created an opportunity to expand health insurance coverage, strengthen safety-net providers, and reform payment and delivery systems.

Grantee Name

Manatt Health Solutions

Funding Area

Expanding Health Care Coverage

Publication Date

May 2015

Grant Amount

$75,000

Grant Date:

April 2010 – October 2010

Expanding Health Care Coverage

Passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) created an opportunity to expand health insurance coverage, strengthen safety-net providers, and reform payment and delivery systems.

However, it largely fell on the states to implement health reform, including expanding Medicaid, creating health insurance exchanges, and carrying out a wide range of insurance law reforms to commercial markets. With support from NYHealth, Manatt Health Solutions developed a roadmap to help identify specific tasks, decisions, and considerations necessary for implementing health reform provisions that would have the greatest impact on New York and its residents.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

  • Published “Implementing Federal Health Care Reform: A Roadmap for New York State” in August 2010. The 93-page roadmap summarized and analyzed the ACA’s implications for New York in three issue areas: coverage; access for the insured and uninsured; and payment and delivery system reform. Among the report’s findings:
    • More than 2 million New Yorkers, or 85% of the total nonelderly uninsured in the State, would have access to health insurance, with more than 1 million uninsured New Yorkers expected to obtain health coverage;
    • An estimated 90,000 individuals would become newly eligible for Medicaid;
    • Nearly 700,000 New Yorkers would become eligible to receive federal tax subsidies to purchase coverage through the NY State of Health Marketplace, the State’s official health benefit exchange;
    • An additional 340,000 uninsured people would become eligible to purchase coverage through the Marketplace but without federal subsidies; and
    • An estimated 400,000 undocumented and uninsured immigrants could remain uncovered because ACA does not extend coverage to undocumented immigrants.

After its release, the report received statewide attention from the media, including NewsdayThe Post-StandardThe Buffalo NewsTimes UnionCrain’s New York BusinessNew York PostNY1WAMC, and WNYC. The report also received favorable attention from State policymakers, insurers, providers, and consumer representatives both within New York and nationally. Specifically, the report was listed as an official resource for the Health Care Reform Advisory Committee, established by former Governor David A. Paterson, to advise State agencies and make recommendations on federal health reform implementation. It is also a featured resource on the New York State Department of Health’s website on federal health reform. After its release, the report was circulated by New York State’s Medicaid director to other Medicaid directors across the country. National health philanthropies, such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, also used the report to develop their grantmaking strategies in response to federal health reform implementation.