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FEDERAL MEDICAID BUDGET CUTS PASSED
BY 3 VOTES!
Thank you to all of
our Members who took the time to contact their Congressional
Representatives this week. While we did not prevail, the final
vote was 216-213 on
S.
1932. Much comfort can be found in the fact that two
of our own Congressmen voted in our favor against the bill;
Representatives John McHugh and John Sweeney. For McHugh, it was
the second time he voted against it, an especially difficult
decision to make.
They deserve our
sincere thanks and appreciation. To go against the leadership in
any vote can be difficult, but to do so on such a contentious bill
that was fated to fail before and only squeaked past the floor by
a six-vote margin, is even more impressive. For a Congressman to
vote “NO” on some bill that has overwhelming support and is
assured passage is really very easy; the leadership plans on that
for members of their caucus that have thorny issues or marginal
districts.
This is the
same bill that first passed the House just before Christmas in an
all-night marathon session with a 212 to 206 vote. The bill then
went to the U.S. Senate, which made a few minor changes, and with
Vice President Dick Cheney casting the decisive vote, it was
approved in December. The minor changes, however, forced the
House to reconsider it on returning to session this week after
their month-long recess. Those changes, and the resulting delay,
gave groups like NYSACRA, ANCOR and AARP, time to mount an
aggressive campaign against the cuts, and thanks to you, we did
just that.
The bill now goes to
the White House for Mr. Bush's signature. However, your advocacy
directly affected Mr. Sweeney’s final vote, since he voted for the
bill last month. NYSACRA thanks you all for your energy and
efforts!
The budget savings
package will cut about 0.3 percent of federal spending over five
years, and will put only a small dent in the federal budget
deficit. But it nonetheless sparked spirited debate, with GOP
leaders arguing that the package is an important first step in
cutting the growth in mandatory spending in advance of the
retirement of the baby boom generation. Democrats charged that
Republicans were carving necessary spending on programs that help
the poor and the middle class to partially offset tax cuts for the
wealthy. Democrats, who are certain to use the vote as fodder for
the fall elections, noted that millions of poor Medicaid
recipients will be asked to shoulder higher costs for medical care
and prescription drugs, and college students and their parents
will pay higher interest rates on loans. They also criticized
conference deals that spared insurance companies and drug
manufacturers from tens of billions of dollars in cuts proposed by
the Senate, terming those deals part of a GOP “culture of
corruption.”
President Bush
provided few details in his State of the Union address January
31st, proposing instead a bipartisan commission to examine
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs.
In related
news, House Republicans, eager to put a fresh face on their
leadership team as they head into difficult November elections,
elected John A. Boehner of Ohio as their new majority leader.
Republicans decided to shake up their leadership team to show they
are responding vigorously to a lobbying scandal that has fueled
Democratic charges that a decade of GOP control has produced a
“culture of corruption” in Washington.
HHS SECRETARY LEAVITT EXTENDS
TRANSITION PERIOD 60 DAYS!
Yesterday, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt announced that the
transitional coverage period for Medicare Part D has been extended
from 30 to 90 days, giving an additional 60 days of transition
coverage. During the transition period, beneficiaries should be
able to continue to get medications they are taking which are not
covered by their Part D plan's formulary. The transition period
is intended to give service providers the opportunity to review
and switch plans, request formulary exceptions or find alternative
medications.
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