NYAPRS Note: Congress is seeking to pay for one bill that protects American workers and families by gutting Medicare funding. This is not a new situation, but is particularly distressing because it continues to force representatives and citizens to pick sides between people experiencing vulnerabilities.
N.Y. Groups Raise Alarm Over Medicare Cuts in Trade Bill
Capital New York; Katie Jennings, 6/5/2015
Health care providers from across the state are calling on the House of Representatives to reject the cuts to Medicare providers included in a proposed federal trade bill.
The Healthcare Association of New York State and Greater New York Hospital Association, along with nine other organizations representing hospitals, nursing homes, home care and other providers, sent a joint letter to the state’s congressional delegation earlier this week urging members to oppose the extension of Medicare sequestration—the automatic annual payment reductions to Medicare providers established by the Budget Control Act of 2011—to help offset the cost of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reauthorization Act.
Extending the payment cuts could potentially cost New York health care providers tens of millions of dollars.
The trade bill extends a federal program that provides assistance for American workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign competition, including tax credits to purchase health insurance, training and job placement. The bill is projected to cost $2.7 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Congress is proposing to pay for it through a combination of spending modifications and customs fees, including a six-month extension of Medicare cuts.
As it currently stands, the Medicare cuts are supposed to expire in mid-2024. The bill would increase Medicare cuts to 0.25 percent in the last six months of 2024, which would create a funding offset of $700 million.
The health care associations worry that using Medicare dollars to fund non-Medicare programs sets a dangerous precedent.
“These cuts undermine the viability of the Medicare program and put providers and beneficiaries at further risk,” Healthcare Association of New York State president Dennis Whalen said in a statement.
HANYS estimates that New York’s hospitals and other care providers already are subject to more than $2.6 billion in Medicare cuts under current law.
“This is adding insult to injury to even suggest that we would get an additional elongation of that cut to pay for some sort of trade bill which has nothing to do with the price of health care in the United States,” Ken Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, told Capital.
“It is particularly upsetting when you take something from left field and ask hospitals to pay for it. I would like to send them a bill for Medicare and put a trade tax on it,” Raske said.
Representative Joe Crowley of Queens, vice chair of the Democratic caucus, offered an amendment to eliminate the Medicare cuts when the bill was presented before the House Ways and Means Committee in April, but the Republican majority blocked it.
“Cutting Medicare to pay for unrelated legislation is not just shortsighted, it is dangerous,” Crowley said in a statement. “In New York alone, the proposed cut would take $70 million just from hospitals—many of which are serving the sickest and poorest patients—in addition to the severe impact it will have on doctors, nursing homes, and home health care providers,” Crowley said in a statement.
Representative Charles Rangel, a Manhattan Democrat, told Capital that Republicans are trying to work out another way of paying for the trade bill before it goes to a vote on the floor, although he didn’t know the specifics of what was being considered.
“It’s too politically sensitive for the Republicans to [say] that they’re cutting a program that is so well-known in support of a program that is hardly known,” Rangel said. “It doesn’t make any political sense at all.”