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Category: Health/Medical

Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations

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House appropriators say the traditionally controversial Labor-HHS-Education appropriations measure could move forward in committee in June. Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee Chairman Denny Rehberg (R-MT) said Thursday that he would like to unveil his measure when the House returns from its recess the week of June 18th. Last year, the measure was not marked up by the House committee and was eventually rolled into a year-end omnibus measure. So far this year, House appropriators have moved 10 measures, leaving only the Labor-HHS-Education and Interior-Environment spending bills to be released.

The Senate has scheduled the mark up of their Labor-HHS-Education bill for June 12th.

Source:  CQRollCall.com

Today in Congress

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The Senate’s in at 9:30am and is expected to hold a key procedural vote on the farm bill at 10:30am. The House is in at 10:00am with first votes expected between 1:30—2:30pm and last votes expected between 10:00—11:00pm. The House is set to repeal parts of the health care act, including the medical device tax. It will also continue consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and vote on a motion to instruct conferees on the highway bill. The House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee marks up its FY2013 spending bill.

Today in DC

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The House is expected to adopt the FY 2013 GOP budget plan, which would set up a conflict with the Senate over appropriations spending levels.  That chamber also plans a vote on a three-month highway bill extension, days before funding for transportation programs expires.  

The Senate votes on a motion to invoke cloture on an oil and gas tax preference repeal measure and resumes consideration of its bill on tax rates for high-income earners.

If both chambers can agree on the transportation extension, they will likely leave town this afternoon to begin their 2-week recess period.

In other action in DC, the Supreme Court has concluded oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  They will now diliberate behind closed doors and offer their ruling sometime in June.

Today in Congress

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The House and the Senate are expected to vote on legislation that would extend a payroll tax cut through the end of the year.  The legislation also would extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and prevent a cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

The Senate holds a test vote on an amendment offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on a two-year surface transportation bill.  This procedure will help determine if the Senate can move toward final passage when they return from their President’s Day recess.

Both the House and Senate will be in recess next week for President’s Day.

Deal on Payroll Tax, Doc Fix, Unemployment

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Congressional leaders have reached a tentative deal on a payroll tax cut, extend unemployment benefits, and delay rate cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients.  Under the proposed plan, a 2-percentage point payroll tax cut would be extended until the end of this calendar year.  The cost of this tax cut would be added to the federal deficit. Unemployment benefits would also be extended for the next 10 months and doctors who treat Medicare patients would avoid seeing their payments cut. Those two provisions would cost about $50 billion and be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

One of the most sensitive issues in the final negotiations was the question of how much Medicare should compensate hospitals for the bad debt accumulated when patients don’t provide their required co-pays for care (uncompensated care). Medicare currently compensates hospitals for 70 percent of their loss and the House proposed to cut this to 55 percent — saving more than $10 billion over 10 years. But this puts a heavy burden on hospitals that provide a lot of uncompensated care – like Harborview.  The final compromise lowers the bad debt cut to about $7 billion, which is better than the original proposal from a couple of months ago but it will still be a blow to hospitals with low-income patients.