Legislature Committee to Hold Discussion on Medicaid and Welfare Programs

The Rockland County Legislature’s Budget
and Finance Committee will hold a discussion of County-administered
Medicaid and Welfare programs at the upcoming meeting of March 10, 2015.
The discussion, sponsored by Vice Chairman of the Legislature Jay Hood,
Jr., will focus on qualifying factors, administration of the programs’
services and fraud detection.

Medicaid is federal health program that provides services to eligible
low-income adults, families, children, and people with disabilities.
Medicaid is administered by states, according to federal requirements
and is funded jointly by states and the federal government, with
exception of New York and Michigan, where local county shares are
required by those state governments. New York requires its counties to
pay 50% of the state’s share. For Rockland County that amounts to
$73,600,000 which equates to 70% of the County property tax dollars
collected.

Legislator Hood said, “Most residents are aware that this is one of the
largest expenses for County government and I believe there is much
misinformation out there. I think it is important to have a
fact-finding discussion with State and County officials. I believe we
will all learn a lot about the Medicaid program and I encourage
residents to come to this meeting to listen to the discussion.”

Budget and Finance Committee Chairman Michael Grant and Legislator Hood
have invited the following State and County personnel to the meeting to
inform the committee and respond to questions:
Tom Meyer, NYS DOH Acting Medicaid Inspector General
Dan Coyne, NYS DOH Deputy Medicaid Inspector for Investigations
Bill Schwartz, NYS DOH, Public Relations, Office of Medicaid Inspector
General
Monica Mahaffey, NYS DOH, Director Public Relations
Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe
Rockland County Commissioner of Social Services Susan Sherwood
Rockland County Commissioner Stephen DeGroat

The Budget and Finance Committee will meet at 7:15 pm in the
Legislature’s chambers, 11 New Hempstead Rd., New City, NY. All
legislature committee meetings are open to the public and attendance is
encouraged. To obtain information on committee meeting schedules and
agendas, please visit www.rocklandgov.com, click on County Legislature
and follow link to Committee Agendas or call (845) 638-5100. All
agendas are subject to change.

Visit us: http://www.rocklandgov.com/
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rockleg