Hearing of Committee on Energy and Commerce - "The Administration's FY '07

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE HEARING ON "THE ADMINISTRATION'S FY '07 HEALTH CARE PRIORITIES"

February 15, 2006

Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. Today we have a situation where there are 46 million uninsured in this country. Six million more Americans have become uninsured since President Bush took office. And the public health infrastructure and programs are limping. Yet the President's budget moves us in the wrong direction.

First, after signing into law reconciliation legislation with $28 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years, the President has returned with a FY2007 budget that makes another $42 billion in cuts to a program that provides health insurance to more than 58 million Americans. The Congressional Budget Office already documented that the first round of cuts would cause thousands to lose coverage each year; these additional cuts will likely have that effect on thousands more.

Second, President Bush is proposing billions in tax breaks to encourage individuals and families to move out of decent employer-sponsored coverage, into high-deductible health plans in the individual insurance market. For a "mere" $156 billion we have a proposal that will erode employer coverage, discriminate against the sick, provide little benefit to those of modest means, and increase the deficit.

Third, the Medicare budget again moves in the wrong direction. The budget fails to include any proposals to fix the documented problems in the Part D - D is for Disaster - drug benefit. The budget also fails to include one dime to address the pending Medicare physician payment cuts. According to the American Medical Association, physicians will see payment cuts totaling $102.5 billion over the next seven years. But this too is ignored by the Administration.

Likewise, the budget does not propose any of the MedPAC-recommended cuts to HMO and private plan payments, which alone would save $50 billion over that time. Instead, it proposes $105 billion in cuts over the next 10 years to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and other providers, all of which are vital parts of Medicare's fee-for-service program that enrolls the vast majority of seniors today.

The President also proposes another increase in the Part B premium for beneficiaries - the third premium increase brought forward by Republicans since 2003. And the budget proposes an automatic cut in provider payments any time general revenues fund more than 45 percent of the program.

Fourth, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and other Public Health Service agencies all play an important role in the protection of public health, yet they get the back of this Administration's fiscal hand.

The Food and Drug Administration is charged with protecting every one of us every day. This budget does not do enough to protect us from counterfeit drugs, adulterated food, or unsafe medical devices.

This budget does not do enough to support the people, training, equipment, and facilities we rely upon to protect our homeland from public health emergencies that are caused by man or nature.

This budget does not do enough to support the discovery of new and improved treatments and cures for cancer, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer's, and the other diseases and conditions that afflict so many of our fellow Americans. In this budget the National Institutes of Health will sponsor less research this year than it did last year and that is wrong.

And community health care centers remain underfunded, as do other health safety net public health programs.

Finally, this Administration is missing in action concerning the catastrophic healthcare situation facing the greater New Orleans region still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. Simply put, I find it appalling that almost six months after the storm - with the billions appropriated to recovery efforts - that thousands of Americans have been receiving critical healthcare services in such settings as tents and a city zoo.

Americans expect better from this budget, and they deserve better.

http://www.house.gov/commerce_democrats/Press_109/109st69.shtml