Appropriations Bills

WASHINGTON – Today, Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, sat before the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education subcommittee to defend the President’s budget request for 2007.

“45.8 million Americans have no health coverage, that’s 5.8 million more than when Bush took office, and once again the President’s budget request cuts the programs that improve access to healthcare,” said Dave Obey (D-WI), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee. “Healthcare costs are skyrocketing, and the President has no plan to reduce costs. Seniors have been left confused and abused by the new Medicare prescription drug program, and there is no apparent plan to help them. Americans have been left up the creek without a paddle.”

The reconciliation bill enacted in January cut Medicaid by an estimated $28 billion over ten years raising health care costs and reducing benefits for our nation’s most vulnerable children and individuals. The new Bush budget proposes making these problems even worse, requesting $35 billion of additional cuts to Medicaid over ten years.

All this before we even get to Bush’s cuts to discretionary spending.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, the agency at HHS whose primary mission it is to improve access to health care, had its budget cut by $754 million last year. Now the Administration is proposing to cut another $255 million this year, from $6.595 million to $6.340 billion.

Rural Healthcare Programs are cut by more than two thirds - from $103 million to $34 million. These cuts mean communities won’t have help with high-priority health needs—such as support for rural clinics, expansion of dental care or mental health services, or increased use of telemedicine to serve remote areas.

Health Professions Training Programs were cut from $300 million to $145 million last year, and the President’s budget cuts them to only $10 million next year. These include programs aimed at increasing the numbers of minority and disadvantaged students attending medical, dental and other health professions schools. They also include training in primary care specialties that, among other things, train students and medical residents in rural communities or inner-city clinics.

Grants to children’s hospitals to help defray the cost of graduate medical education would be reduced by two thirds, from $297 million to $99 million.

The Maternal and Child Health Block Grant helps states provide prenatal care for mothers and preventive health services and medical treatment for children lacking other sources of health care. These programs have been cut every year since 2002, and would see funding frozen in the President’s budget.

The National Health Service Corps, which provides scholarship and loan repayment assistance for medical students and graduates if they agree to practice in underserved areas, is frozen after being cut the past three years. As a result, there are projected to be 821 fewer doctors and dentists serving in the Corps in FY 2007 than there were two years earlier.

Health Centers: there is an increase in funding for the President’s initiative to increase the number of health centers, but grants for existing centers are frozen for a second year in a row. These efficient, low-cost providers are faced with the same cost pressures facing the rest of the health care community at the same time as many are seeing rising numbers of uninsured patients whose care is largely supported by these grants.

The President’s budget also calls for eliminating several other programs at HRSA, including grants to improve emergency medical services for children, to promote universal hearing screening of newborn infants, and to improve care of patients with brain injuries.

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