[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14312-S14313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HEALTH AND WELFARE RELIEF ACT OF 2005

  Mr. BAUCUS. I support the Health and Welfare Relief Act of 2005. This 
bill

[[Page S14313]]

will provide funding for important initiatives that take effect in 
January 2006, just a few days from now.
  This morning the Senate passed, by the slimmest of margins, S. 1932, 
legislation to cut about $40 billion from mandatory spending programs 
over the next 5 years. I did not support S. 1932 because I believe it 
contains bad policy on Medicaid, on welfare, and on child support 
enforcement, among other things.
  For example, S. 1932 includes $5 billion in cuts to the child support 
enforcement program, which will mean that an estimated $19.6 million in 
child support funds will go uncollected in Montana over the next 10 
years. That is money that should go to needy Montana kids.
  As for Medicaid, S. 1932 contains almost $2 billion in increased 
copays for Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as other Medicaid cuts. 
There are right ways to cut health care costs, through greater 
efficiencies that will save more money over time, and there is a wrong 
way to cut costs: on the backs of the Americans who can least afford to 
pay more for their health care. S. 1932 goes the wrong way and ignores 
the Senate's strong instruction to protect Medicaid beneficiaries from 
deep spending cuts. Last week 75 Senators supported a motion I offered 
in the Senate instructing budget conferees not to come back with a bill 
that included higher Medicaid copays and benefit cuts. Passage of S. 
1932 is inconsistent with that vote.
  S. 1932 is bad news for the welfare program as well. Despite a Senate 
vote of 64 to 27 in support of removing TANF from S. 1932, the bill 
that the Senate passed today does just that: it reauthorizes TANF 
through the budget reconciliation process, with a punitive and 
unnecessarily austere set of provisions. The TANF Program, originally 
passed in 1996, has successfully reduced welfare caseloads and focused 
on moving parents from welfare to work. Changes to the TANF Program 
should build on the success of 1996 reforms, not reverse that success, 
as S. 1932 will ultimately do.
  Unfortunately, S. 1932 takes something that is not broken--and fixes 
it. For example, S. 1932 would raise work requirements without 
providing the funding needed to help States get people working. In 
fact, while S. 1932 includes $1 billion in additional funding for 
childcare, that is $7.4 billion short of what the Congressional Budget 
Office estimates to be the cost to States of meeting the TANF work 
requirements under this bill.
  The Health and Welfare Relief Act would extend TANF for an additional 
year, maintaining current policy on this important program. The Health 
and Welfare Relief Act would also extend transitional medical 
assistance, TMA, for an additional year, a program that is critical for 
helping families make the transition from welfare to work.
  The Health and Welfare Relief Act also contains a fix to the Medicare 
physician payment formula, which is set to cut Medicare physician 
payments by 4.4 percent on January 1. It prevents a cap on Medicare 
physical therapy from taking effect. And it extends an important 
provision for small rural hospitals' outpatient departments, helping 
them stay afloat. The bill also provides $60 million for CMS 
administrative funding, which should be spent to help educate seniors 
about the new Medicare drug benefit. And it contains $80 million for 
important legislation that I have sponsored related to high-risk pools, 
which are often the insurer of last resort.
  Finally, the Health and Welfare Relief Act includes important 
legislation providing relief to individuals and States harmed by 
Hurricane Katrina. Like the Lincoln amendment voted on in the Senate 
November 3, this bill contains provisions to: provide temporary 
Medicaid relief to Katrina survivors; help States struggling to meet 
health care costs incurred as a result of Katrina; and assist providers 
dealing with Katrina-related uncompensated care costs.
  I support the minority leader's efforts to pass these timely and 
critical provisions through the Health and Welfare Relief Act of 2005. 
While I do not support S. 1932, we should take the positive elements of 
that bill--as well as important provisions to aid Katrina victims--and 
pass them today.

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