Senate Appropriations Committee Passes Bill With Provision To Block Medicaid Rules, Increase FDA Funding

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Regulatory Affairs / Drug Approvals
Article Date: 19 May 2008 - 12:00 PDT

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The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $193 billion supplemental war appropriations bill that includes a provision to block for one year seven new Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration, CongressDaily reports. The legislation, which has three parts -- war spending, policy conditions for the funds and domestic spending -- also includes $275 million for FDA. Before the passage of the bill, the committee unanimously approved an amendment proposed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) that would block for one year an SCHIP policy directive announced last year by the administration (Kivlan, CongressDaily, 5/15).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that he hopes to move the bill to the floor on Monday. The Senate plans to hold separate votes on each of the three parts of the bill. According to CQ Today, the "Senate will ... have to reconcile the House version with its own committee's language and muster some Republican support to get a final version through the chamber," which "will not be easy" (Rogin/Higa, CQ Today, 5/15).

House Version
Meanwhile, the House on Thursday approved two parts of the bill -- the sections on domestic spending and policy conditions for war funds -- but rejected the part on war spending, CQ Today reports (Clarke/Higa, CQ Today, 5/15). The House version of the legislation, which would cost $183.7 billion, includes the provision to block the Medicaid regulations.

President Bush on Thursday said that he would veto the bill (Sanchez/Bourge, CongressDaily, 5/15). Bush threatened to veto the legislation because of the lack of war spending and the policy conditions for war funds (Taylor, AP/Baltimore Sun, 5/16). According to the Washington Post, although Bush also opposes the part of the bill on domestic spending, those funds "will garner considerable support in both parties," which makes the prospects for that section of the legislation more "unclear" (Weisman, Washington Post, 5/16).

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