New York Gov. David Paterson said he was surprised to hear that a no-bid federal contract providing coverage to uninsured state residents with pre-existing conditions went to the company that also employs his wife.

David Paterson

Paterson said he and his wife, Michelle Paterson, read about the contract with Group Health Inc., to be directed by the New York State Insurance Department, in an article in the New York Post Monday, according to the newspaper.

The first lady is Emblem Health’s director of integrative wellness, earning $152,000 a year.

Group Health is a subsidiary of Emblem Health, chosen for the contract because it is a non-profit serving most of the state, an insurance department spokesman told the newspaper, The contract is for $297 million.

A governor’s press office statement, issued July 1, said state officials “requested that GHI serve as the designated nonprofit contractor” to oversee the federal contract, whose terms include up to $30 million in “administrative costs,” according to the newspaper. A spokesman for the governor, Morgan Hook, told the newspaper the press office sent out the statement, not the governor.

Under federal health reform, passed in March, states are creating programs to insure more people, ahead of planned state health insurance exchanges in 2014.