When compiling data on Medicaid each year, there was one thing I couldn't explain. Why was New York's spending on the mentally ill and disabled so high? Unlike the seniors, they aren't a particularly powerful group. Is New York that generous, or are other states so unfeeling?
Evidently some journalists and the Feds were asking the same questions. And it appears to be a high cost jobs program. A sinecure. White welfare. The big bucks are going to former state institutions left over from de-institutionalization, where lots of politically powerful workers tend to few needy people. It's about the producer of public services interest, not public services or the needy. Again.
"The federal government had asked the state to justify its $4,556 per-person daily rate at nine state institutions as "reasonable" in response to revelations in June in the Journal. The rate, paid half each by the state and federal governments, is four times higher than any other nationwide and about four times the actual cost of care."
"Nonetheless, in releasing documents that have been turned over to federal Medicaid officials in support of the rate, officials of the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities also revealed that they are seeking to increase it — though they would not say by how much. The rate, which is set by the state, went up about 10 percent in each of the past two years and is more than tenfold what it was in 1990."
"The institutions include the former Wassaic Developmental Center in eastern Dutchess County, which is now called the Wassaic campus of the Taconic Developmental Disabilities Service Office."
The linker isn't working, but you may be able to get the link here, or Google it.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20101101/NEWS01/11010327/1006/news01/State-defends-highest-cost-in-nation-for-mentally-disabled