In the increasingly heated battle over health-care funding in Albany, health interests are using plays from their traditional playbook, while Gov. Eliot Spitzer is employing some new and unusual tactics.

Hospital lobby groups brought some 3,000 workers to the Capitol to protest more than $1 billion in spending reductions proposed by Spitzer in the state budget due April 1. The hospital groups and powerful health-care unions have also paid for television ads criticizing Spitzer’s plan, saying it’s all about cuts and not true reform of the health-care system, as Spitzer has argued.

These tactics have proved successful in the past. Similar ads and shows of force persuaded the Legislature in years past to reject health cuts suggested by former Gov. George Pataki.

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After weeks of battling, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders were able to make nice and recently announce compromises on two significant issues: reform of the workers compensation system and confinement of sex offenders beyond their prison terms.

It’s encouraging to see some signs of good will among the state’s top leaders — they’re going to need it. The state budget is due in less than a month, and the issues remain contentious.

The agreement to overhaul workers comp was a big victory for the business community, which has been complaining about the high cost of covering workers for years. The average cost of a claim in New York in 2002 was more than $16,000, compared to a national average closer to $9,000. Higher claim costs drove up the price of insurance to employers, and some New York businesses ended up paying many times what they would pay in other states to cover their workers. Read the rest of this entry »