House Passes FY 2009 Budget Resolution With No Reductions To Medicaid, Medicare

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 09 Jun 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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The House on Thursday voted 214-210 to approve a $3.1 trillion fiscal year 2009 budget resolution (S Con Res 70) that includes increases in funds for domestic programs and excludes reductions in funds for Medicare and Medicaid proposed by President Bush, the AP/Kansas City Star reports. The Senate approved the resolution on Wednesday (Taylor, AP/Kansas City Star, 6/6).

The resolution includes $1.013 trillion in discretionary spending (Sanchez, CongressDaily, 6/5). The resolution would provide $21 billion more in discretionary spending than Bush requested. Under the resolution, programs for veterans would receive $3.3 billion more than Bush requested, with most of those funds allocated for health care (Montgomery, Washington Post, 6/6).

House Appropriations subcommittees likely will begin to mark up the 12 appropriations bills next week, and Senate Appropriations subcommittees likely will begin the process later this month (Clarke, CQ Today, 6/5).

Prospects
According to The Hill, with the "budget debate over, questions immediately turned to whether Congress will pass annual spending bills before it adjourns and set up an almost-certain showdown with the Bush White House during its final year" (Allen, The Hill, 6/5).

"Democrats are considering delaying passage of most of the bills until a new president takes office in January" because "Bush has vowed to veto appropriations bills that exceed his spending requests," the Washington Post reports (Washington Post, 6/6). As a result, the resolution "essentially leaves the budget on autopilot for a year until either" presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) "can propose a budget," the AP/Star reports.

Meanwhile, "Republicans lamented the lost opportunity to tackle the biggest budget challenge: the rapidly spiraling cost of Medicare, Social Security and ... Medicaid," with the long-term growth of the programs likely to "force policymakers to cut back ... or else put the government on an unsustainable deficit path," according to the AP/Star (AP/Kansas City Star, 6/6).

Revised Supplemental War Appropriations Bill
In related news, the House next week likely will vote on a revised supplemental war appropriations bill that includes a one-year moratorium on some new Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration, CongressDaily reports (Bourge/Schneider, CongressDaily, 6/5). House aides have said the legislation likely will include a moratorium on four of the seven Medicaid regulations. Earlier versions of the bill included a moratorium on all seven Medicaid regulations.

House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey (D-Wis.) and other House Democrats have met with White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle to discuss the legislation, which Bush has threatened to veto in part because of the moratorium on the Medicaid regulations (Rogin, CQ Today, 6/5). A Democratic aide said, "We are trying to negotiate a bill that the president will sign" (Bourge/Schneider, CongressDaily, 6/5).

House Democratic leaders also have met with members of the Blue Dog Coalition to address their concerns about a lack of offsets for some of the funds that the bill would provide (Bendery, Roll Call, 6/5). In addition, "Senate Democrats made it clear Thursday that their legislative priorities also must be considered by House leaders who are crafting the latest" version of the bill, CQ Today reports (Rogin, CQ Today, 6/5).

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