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U.S. HOUSE EKES OUT PASSAGE OF HR 4241
(Correction: Sweeney & McHugh voted
NO, Please Thank Them!)
After 1 a.m. this
morning the US House of Representatives passed by a narrow
217 to
215 margin,
HR 4241, the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation bill, which included Medicaid cuts. After many
failed attempts to put it to a vote in the last two weeks, the
leaders continued to strip out some of the cuts or tone them
down. They slightly reduced the $50 billion total savings to be
achieved over five years by a mere $12 million.
Deserving of your
kind thanks are Reps. Sweeney and McHugh, who voted NO.
Despite all of
your phone calls and emails, most of the fence leaners ended up on the
party line as the rest of the Republican Congressional Reps from New York
voted for the bill. Only fourteen Republicans voted "No" overall.
Two Democrats didn’t vote, one was Edolphus Towns from Brooklyn.
NYSACRA thanks our Members for their grassroots action on this
bill.
See Vote Roll Here.
To win House
approval, Speaker Hastert ordered modest concessions on plans to
limit eligibility for food stamps and require the poorest Medicaid
patients to pay more for their care. He ordered killed a
provision to deny free school lunches to about 40,000 children
whose parents would lose their food stamps.
The concession to
moderates included leaving co-payments for the poorest Medicaid
beneficiaries at $3 instead of raising them to $5. A provision
denying Medicaid nursing home benefits to people with home equity
of $500,000 was modified by raising the cap to $750,000.
Those changes and
other promises won the votes of lawmakers who had earlier
registered opposition to the bill, including James Walsh, R-N.Y.,
Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich.
The biggest
concession came Thursday evening when Walsh won language
permitting food stamp recipients making the transition to work to
continue to be able to receive non-cash benefits for child care,
transportation and housing without losing their nutrition
benefits.
Please thank our
Congressional Reps who opposed
HR 4241 for the steadfast
determination.
The bill will now
need to be negotiated between the House and Senate, and the Senate
version,
S.
1932, had significantly lower cuts totaling $35 billion, $4.5
billion of which came from Medicaid.
HHS
BUDGET BILL, HR 3010 GOES DOWN IN MAJOR DEFEAT
Yesterday’s news
wasn’t all bad. As we reported yesterday, in a stunning defeat,
the House failed to pass the HHS, Education & Labor Budget bill,
HR 3010. It was defeated
224 to 209, the first time that has
happened in ten years. The bill also contained reductions in
support for various programs.
See Vote
Roll Here.
DME
ACTION CENTER
Yesterday we reported on the Assembly Hearing on DME approval
problems with DOH across the State. If you are still experiencing
problems, please use the
NYSACRA Action Center to send an email or
letter to DOH Commissioner Novella, the Governor and Legislative
Leaders. Go to
www.nysacra.org
and click on the Action Center logo at the top left and scroll
down to the DME Alert. Edit the message there to detail your
Agency’s issues with DME.
Or Click Here.
SAVE THE
DATE: NYSACRA LEGISLATIVE DAY 2006 –
JANUARY 31, 2006
Next year’s NYSACRA
Legislative Day 2006 comes early on Tuesday, January 31, 2006.
Invitation letters and sign-up sheets will be sent out shortly,
but you can sign-up any time online by visiting
www.nysacra.org/nysacra/legday2006.htm or just
Click Here or print the form and fax in. |
