MEDIA ADVISORY, Monday, February 5, 2007
CONTACT: Yoni Cohen, (202) 225-3202

Washington, D.C. –- U.S. Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), Chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, today responded to the release of President Bush’s budget for fiscal year 2008:
 
"In the new Congress, I had hoped to work with the Bush Administration to protect Medicare and Medicaid for future generations and provide all children with quality health care," said Stark. "But the President's divisive budget is an exercise in make-believe intended to incite partisanship, not invite policymaking. Rather than acknowledge the will of the American people and incorporate Democratic ideas into his budget in the hope of reaching legislative consensus, Bush reintroduced many of his same old, partisan health care schemes."
 
"The President's regressive health care tax deductions for individuals will destroy the employer-based health-care system through which 160 million Americans currently receive coverage," continued Stark. "Bush's partisan proposal to double-tax certain beneficiaries of physician services and the prescription drug program will turn Medicare into a welfare program. Reductions in funding to Medicaid will limit states' ability to provide coverage to their most needy residents, especially children, and further burden already stretched budgets, undermining state efforts to cover the uninsured."
 
"The budget preempts Congress' annual review of Medicare payment policy, calling for permanent and long-term cuts that even Republican Congresses would be unlikely to enact. At the same time, it fails to address physician payment reform, a significant problem which the Bush Administration and previous Republican Congresses allowed to fester and grow. The budget also ignores one low-hanging fruit for cost savings, keeping in place overpayments to Medicare HMOs that cost taxpayers billions," said Stark.
 
"Last but not least, the President’s budget ends Medicare as an entitlement," continued Stark. "In explicitly capping Medicare spending at 45 percent of general revenues, the President would compel automatic and across the board cuts that will undermine the quality of health care delivered to America's seniors and people with disabilities."
 
"In his budget, an unpopular President missed a historic opportunity to get off on the right foot with the new Congress," concluded Stark.