Committees pass budget plans that exclude Medicare, Medicaid cuts

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

Committees pass budget plans that exclude Medicare, Medicaid cuts

Source: The American Hospital Association ( http://www.aha.org )
Date: March 6, 2008


The House Budget Committee yesterday voted 22-16 to approve a fiscal year 2009 budget
resolution (http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats/) that excludes the president’s
proposed Medicare and Medicaid cuts. However, the budget blueprint includes
reconciliation instructions directing the House Ways and Means Committee, which has
jurisdiction over Medicare, to report legislation that decreases spending or increases
revenues by $750 million over five years. The resolution also includes reserve funds for
budget-neutral legislation to improve Medicare and the State Children’s Health Insurance
Program and prevent or delay Medicaid regulations. This afternoon, the Senate Budget
Committee voted 12-10 to approve a budget resolution
(http://www.senate.gov/~budget/democratic/) that excludes Medicare cuts to hospitals,
assumes the cost of extending the moratoria on several Medicaid regulations, and provides
reserve funds for budget-neutral legislation to improve SCHIP and physician
reimbursement. The House and Senate resolutions, expected to go to their respective
floors next week, eventually must be reconciled in conference. The president’s budget
plan proposed more than $182 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next five years, of
which $135 billion would come from hospitals; as well as $18 billion in Medicaid cuts.

Visit AHA News Now and its print version, AHA News, at http://www.ahanews.com/. Our
street address:

American Hospital Association
325 7th St. NW
Washington, DC 20004

Abid Mogannam &
Brian Potts MD, MBA
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/



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