The Bleeding Obvious

In today's Buffalo News, it's noted that Comptroller Hevesi recognizes that Medicaid is out-of-control. Welcome to the discussion, Albany. (sigh) Medicaid is the Tsunami that's washing New York away and killing everyone in its path. (Sorry. I had to say "Tsunami" because it's all I hear about all day).

By the year 2010, Medicaid will cost county governments in New York an additional $1.1 billion in taxes, a third more than this year, the state comptroller concludes in a report made public Thursday. Erie County in five years will need $67 million more than it spends on Medicaid now, the report says, and if the county closed the gap with property taxes, it would have to raise them 40 percent. Chautauqua County would need $16.8 million more, requiring a 32 percent increase in its tax levy. And Niagara County would need $19 million, a 27 percent increase, if the health care program continues to grow at its current rate. 'Medicaid costs are pushing already high local property taxes even higher,' Comptroller Alan Hevesi said, echoing the complaints that leaders in Erie and other counties have voiced for years.

Will Pataki, Silver and Bruno do anything about it? Isn't it pathetic and sad that we have to rely on this SLORC junta triumverate to decide things in NY?