Today in DC

Posted on March 29, 2012October 17, 2012

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

Posted on February 17, 2012October 17, 2012

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

Posted on February 15, 2012October 17, 2012

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.

NIH Issues Guidance on Salary Cap

Posted on January 27, 2012October 17, 2012

On January 20^th, NIH issued a guidance notice related to the salary cap enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (P.L. 112-74). Division F, Section 203, of the appropriations law reduced the salary cap on NIH, AHRQ, and SAMHSA extramural awards from Executive Level I ($199,700) to Executive Level II ($179,700). Read more at AAMC’s web page.

This Week in Washington DC

Posted on November 14, 2011October 17, 2012

Happy Monday morning! It will be a busy week in Washington, DC with the continuing resolution (CR) expiring on Friday, appropriators scrambling to approve at least one “mini-bus” before week’s end, the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee deadline looming next week, the House taking action on a balanced budget amendment, and Obama announcing the next phase of his “We Can’t Wait” agenda.

Super Committee

Although the bipartisan panel officially has until November 23^rd to make their recommendations, it would take time to write legislative language and have it officially analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office by that deadline, as is required by the August debt limit law (PL 112-25) that created the committee. This means that the group will need to have the outlines of a deal in place by the end of this week. On a positive note, members of the bipartisan panel have recently indicated their willingness to compromise on issues important to each party – such as increasing revenues and curtailing entitlements. Republicans for the first time have opened the door to an increase in new tax revenue, while Democrats have proposed deeper spending cuts, which could include both Medicare and Medicaid. Despite that progress, both parties rejected proposals leaked last week that contained those concessions, each side saying that the other’s plan had not offered enough.

First Mini-Bus: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD

Appropriators are expected to file a conference report Monday on the first mini-bus of FY12 spending bills, setting the stage for Congress to clear it by week’s end. The package contains roughly $127.8 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD spending bills for FY12. It is expected to be passed first by the House and then by the Senate. The largely non-controversial bundle will contain a new CR to keep government running through mid-December, since the current stopgap measure expires on Friday.

Second Mini-Bus: Energy-Water, Financial Services, and State-Foreign Operations

The Senate will begin debating the second mini-bus package this week, and hope to take action on the measure next week before leaving for the Thanksgiving holiday. The package, which includes the Energy-Water, Financial Services, and State-Foreign Operations spending measures, would provide a total of $129.5 billion for the various agencies in FY12. In a sign of bipartisan support, 81 senators backed cloture on the measure last week but support for bringing the bill to the floor may mask stumbling blocks that lie in controversial amendments, which are expected to target both funding levels and policy provisions in the bills.

Balanced Budget Amendment

House leaders plan to bring up for consideration a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This measure will be a more “traditional” version rather than one that mandates spending caps and requires a supermajority for raising taxes. Supporters of the traditional balanced-budget amendment, which requires that outlays do not exceed revenues and a three-fifths majority to raise the debt ceiling, emphasize that the same version passed in the House in 1995 with 300 votes, including 72 Democratic supporters. The vote, scheduled for later this week, will fulfill a requirement of the August debt limit law and also satisfy members of the House Republican conference who are eager to back it. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority to pass either chamber, which is 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate.

Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” Issue of the Week: Healthcare Workforce

According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration will announce today as much as $1 billion to hire, train, and deploy healthcare workers, part of the President’s broader “We Can’t Wait” agenda to bolster the economy after his jobs bill stalled in Congress last month. Grants can go to doctors, community groups, local government, and other organizations that work with patients in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The funds are for experimenting with different ways to expand the healthcare workforce while reducing the cost of delivering care. There will be an emphasis on speed, with new programs expected to be running within six months of funding. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, created as part of the Affordable Care Act, will administer and oversee the program, called the Health Care Innovation Challenge.

Sources: CQ, Washington Post, Politico