The Troy Record reports that New York Senator Chuck Schumer said that a proposed rules change for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could bring an estimated annual nearly $1 billion to Upstate New York hospitals. Schumer said, “For far too long, Upstate New York hospitals have faced unfairly low Medicare payments that fell terribly short of wage demands leaving hospitals struggling to compete to bring the best doctors and nurses to Upstate New York. After years of fighting though, the feds have finally shifted course, and proposed a new rule that can help finally rectify the unfair payment system, and give Upstate NY the shot in the arm it has long needed to the tune of nearly a billion dollars every single year." There have been numerous cutbacks at New York hospitals in recent years. Columbia Memorial in Hudson, for instance, no longer has birthing services for mothers. Schumer says that the proposed rule change would bring more than $967 million in increased federal funding for hospital systems across Upstate New York. Since the 1980s, hospitals in the Albany area have only received 86 percent of what the average hospital gets to account for wages. Columbia Memorial would get an extra $8,228,068 if the proposed rule change goes through. Read more about this story in the Troy Record.