The Governor, the CEO & the FBI: Scandal Threatens New York Hospital

RealClear Investigations ^ | November 04, 2025 | Benjamin Weingarten

[E. Pluribus Unum]

After taking the helm at New York’s financially troubled Nassau University Medical Center late last year, Megan C. Ryan stumbled upon something baffling in the books: a two-decade-long series of transactions engineered by New York State that may have shortchanged the hospital by a staggering $1 billion in matching funds.

As a hospital primarily serving patients on Medicare, Medicaid, or who are uninsured, the medical center qualified for federal matching grants tied to state contributions. Ryan’s discovery indicated that the state was having the medical center itself post its share of the match – for around 20 years at $50 million per year – essentially cheating it out of the state’s matching dollars. “We just couldn’t wrap our heads around how a hospital that serves the poor would be forced to put up tens of millions of dollars” in place of state funds, Ryan told RealClearInvestigations.

Ryan says she called James Dering, previously general counsel of the New York Department of Health, for a legal opinion about the financial arrangement. That opinion indicated it was improper.

What seems like a local tussle over health care has all the trappings of a bigger partisan political fight in the run-up to one of the more important races for governor next year in New York.

Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection, is the central player in the dispute. The hospital – already at loggerheads with Hochul’s administration over claims the state was unduly withholding needed aid – filed suit last December against New York seeking to be made whole for the $1 billion it believed it was owed.

That litigation would help set in motion a series of events culminating in the takeover of the hospital by Hochul, removing control of the public benefit corporation from the hands of...

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TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: democratcorruption; kathyhochul

[E. Pluribus Unum]

From later in the article: The chairman of the hospital’s financial overseer, Richard Kessler, has ties to housing development, sparking fears among critics of an NUMC closure and real estate play.

The hospital sits on very valuable land in a “highly desirable county that has little space to grow,” and "high-density housing would most likely benefit Democrats."

[edwinland]

Mayor Lindsey was once asked whether he had to adopt a particular position “as a matter of principle.”

Answer:

“In New York, when someone tells you ‘it’s a matter of principle’ it’s about real estate.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Profits for the few and well-connected....

But for the state?

"Longer-term, per DiNapoli, the picture grows even more distressing: Albany is facing its worst cash shortfall, as a share of spending, since the Great Recession — with $34.3 billion in red ink through 2029."

-- snip --

"...the denialism to keep on dominating Albany: Hochul is running for re-election next year, with strong incentive to depend on gimmickry to paper over the state's deficit until after November — and so make the longer-term problem even worse. This warning may be the loudest DiNapoli offers for the next 16 months, as his fellow Democrats push him to collude with Hochul in denying that New York is staring at its worst budget crisis in years."

New York state's headed deep into the red — but Albany will ‘rely’ on denial NY Post, 12 August 2025

How to read this? Well, the NY optimist would say, "it's better than California..."

[Jeff Chandler]

Sleepless in New York?

[spacejunkie2001]

why does the title say it threatens the hospital when it’s the state that was ripping them off? I’d say it’s NY that’s threatened.

[ridesthemiles]

ANOTHER “KELO” DEAL????

[ridesthemiles]

IT REALLY IS NOT THAT HARD TO DO ACCURATE & CONCISE ACCOUNTING

[umbagi]

It’s worth more slick. Watch for a Gruesome-Bash style stunt like they pulled on LA.