Bush Administration’s Draconian CMS Policies Would Cripple Health Care Safety-Net
WASHINGTON – With the health of our safety-net in
jeopardy, Energy and Commerce Committee Vice Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO)
today highlighted the need to halt the Bush Administration’s draconian
Medicaid regulations. During the Energy and Commerce Health
Subcommittee mark-up of the Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, [H.R. 5613],
DeGette supported legislation that places a temporary one-year
moratorium on seven Administration-imposed Medicaid regulations that
would make significant cuts to the program over the next five years.
These regulations would have a have a crippling affect on our health
care safety-net.
Below is the text of DeGette’s opening statement as prepared for delivery:
“I can’t tell you enough how my providers in Colorado thank you [Health Subcommittee Chairman Pallone] and Mr. Dingell, and also the minority, for working together on this important piece of legislation. I’ve said from day one that these Medicaid rule changes are really a meat axe approach to solving perceived problems rather than a scalpel approach. That’s because, it seems to me that the Administration decided they needed to have some savings to Medicaid so they just changed the rules rather than letting a reflective, comprehensive process take effect.
“The regulations we are talking about today will be potentially devastating in many ways as we heard in the hearing last week. They are going to:
Below is the text of DeGette’s opening statement as prepared for delivery:
“I can’t tell you enough how my providers in Colorado thank you [Health Subcommittee Chairman Pallone] and Mr. Dingell, and also the minority, for working together on this important piece of legislation. I’ve said from day one that these Medicaid rule changes are really a meat axe approach to solving perceived problems rather than a scalpel approach. That’s because, it seems to me that the Administration decided they needed to have some savings to Medicaid so they just changed the rules rather than letting a reflective, comprehensive process take effect.
“The regulations we are talking about today will be potentially devastating in many ways as we heard in the hearing last week. They are going to:
• limit target case management services to vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and disabled children;
• restrict school-based rehabilitation, transportation, and administrative services for low-income children;
• limit important outpatient services, such as dental and vision care, which help to keep children out of emergency rooms; and
• and limit public hospitals’ ability to draw down federal matching funding, and thereby threatening the viability of the entire safety net.
• restrict school-based rehabilitation, transportation, and administrative services for low-income children;
• limit important outpatient services, such as dental and vision care, which help to keep children out of emergency rooms; and
• and limit public hospitals’ ability to draw down federal matching funding, and thereby threatening the viability of the entire safety net.
“I want to talk for just a moment about this last
regulation, which limits states’ ability to use intergovernmental
transfers as a means to pay for their share of Medicaid expenditures.
Historically, there have been some abuses of this financing mechanism,
in which states used intergovernmental transfers to draw down a greater
share of federal matching funds than they should have. However, as we
heard from James Cosgrove of Government Accountability Office (GAO)
during last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
has already fixed these problems and as a result, 29 states have ended
one or more inappropriate financing agreements.
“Since these abuses have already been identified and resolved, the burden of the new public provider rule will fall on states that are not doing anything wrong.
“Like my state which has to find legitimate, but creative ways of funding their safety net hospitals – nobody is saying all states are abusing this mechanism. My state of Colorado will lose upwards of $145 million. Nationwide hospitals will lose billions of dollars. There are over 2,000 governmental hospitals nationwide, and although not all of these hospitals are necessarily impacted (or impacted in the same way). States like California, New York, and Florida, will be impacted, as well as others simply because of the way they finance their hospitals, not because they are doing anything wrong.
“This is the number one issue for Denver Health, which is my primary safety-net provider and is one of the most recognized innovators in cost savings and efficiency in the whole country. So needless to say, we’ve all been apoplectic about these rules changes and we think this bill goes a long way and I also think some of the changes the minority worked with on the manager’s amendment – particularly increased funding to weed out waste, fraud and abuse – are really helpful to the bill.
“I was heartened to hear Ranking Member Barton say he believed that with the manager’s amendment changes, the bill would be signed into law by the President. This is something that is desperately needed all over the country.”
“Since these abuses have already been identified and resolved, the burden of the new public provider rule will fall on states that are not doing anything wrong.
“Like my state which has to find legitimate, but creative ways of funding their safety net hospitals – nobody is saying all states are abusing this mechanism. My state of Colorado will lose upwards of $145 million. Nationwide hospitals will lose billions of dollars. There are over 2,000 governmental hospitals nationwide, and although not all of these hospitals are necessarily impacted (or impacted in the same way). States like California, New York, and Florida, will be impacted, as well as others simply because of the way they finance their hospitals, not because they are doing anything wrong.
“This is the number one issue for Denver Health, which is my primary safety-net provider and is one of the most recognized innovators in cost savings and efficiency in the whole country. So needless to say, we’ve all been apoplectic about these rules changes and we think this bill goes a long way and I also think some of the changes the minority worked with on the manager’s amendment – particularly increased funding to weed out waste, fraud and abuse – are really helpful to the bill.
“I was heartened to hear Ranking Member Barton say he believed that with the manager’s amendment changes, the bill would be signed into law by the President. This is something that is desperately needed all over the country.”
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