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On The Hill
. . .
Medicaid, Medicare, And Programs For The Poor Momentarily Saved From Cuts
A Gordian tangle of Senate procedural moves that interwove the Labor, Health,
Human Services, and Education budget with the defense appropriation and oil
drilling on the Alaskan north shore, eliminated severe cuts to Medicaid,
Medicare, and other programs for the poor. Those cuts will now have to be
re-fought in the House early next year if Republicans want to meet their budget
goals.
Issues that the House will have to readdress include higher co-payments for
Medicaid beneficiaries, program changes that would have allowed states to pare
back services to millions of children and would have made it more difficult for
seniors to qualify for coverage after asset transfers, and costly breaks to
insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Also eliminated from the budget was a
move to grant hospitals immunity if they refused treatment to Medicaid
recipients who could not afford co-payments.
The Medicare program avoided $6.4 billion in cuts and physicians will not
experience a $7.3 billion loss in funds for services, 4.4% reduction in
reimbursement rates, scheduled to take effect January 1.
In other programs, child support enforcement funds will loose $1.5 billion,
compared to the House plan of $4.9 billion in cuts. While an additional $1
billion remains in the budget for child care, that is down from the $6 billion
sought by the Senate Finance Committee. And, while the budget included $3.75
billion in scholarships for low-income students who major in math, science, and
foreign language, down from the $8 billion sought, overall, student aid programs
were scheduled for $12.7 billion in cuts by the House.
In debate on these issues in the Senate, it was pointed out that the savings in
mandatory and discretionary programs, including a 1% across-the-board cut, would
not come close to off-setting the up to $100 billion in expected tax cuts next
year. All Senate Democrats stood firm in opposing the House cuts and were joined
by a handful of Republicans.
Mental Health Parity
Without opposition or fanfare, the existing mental health parity statute, first
passed in 1996 and due to expire on December 31 of this year, was extended by
the Congress for an additional year. Riddled with gaps and exceptions, the
existing law requires group health plans that offer mental health benefits to
set the same annual and lifetime caps on mental health coverage that exists in
the plan's medical and surgical sections.
Thanks to Richard Yanes, Executive Director of the Clinical Social Work
Federation (CSWF) for this report.
12/05