Health Care Reform Continues March Through House, Senate Committees

This week, the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance Committees took up legislation to reform the country’s health care system.

House Energy and Commerce Committee

On September 23, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed, 28-22, a motion to instruct with regard to H.R. 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. The committee approved the legislation on July 31 (see The Source, 7/31/09); the Ways and Means and Education and Labor Committees approved their respective portions of H.R. 3200 on July 17 (see The Source, 7/17/09). Through a mutual agreement between Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX), the committee reconvened to consider additional amendments not taken up before the August congressional recess. The motion instructs the Rules Committee to include any new changes in the underlying bill.

The committee approved, by voice vote, a series of en bloc amendments to Rep. Waxman’s substitute amendment, which the committee also adopted by voice vote. Included in the en bloc package is:

• an amendment by Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) to create an Office of Women’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration. An Office of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Research would be established at the Agency for Health Research and Quality;
• an amendment by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) to authorize the secretary of HHS to award grants to eligible entities to create, implement, and oversee infant mortality pilot programs. The amendment would authorize $10 million annually from FY2010-2014; and
• an amendment by Del. Donna Christensen (D-VI) to require the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to include “an expert in child and adolescent health.”

Senate Finance Committee

This week, the Senate Finance Committee began its consideration of The America’s Healthy Future Act (as-yet-unnumbered). The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved similar legislation, the Affordable Health Choices Act (S. 1679), on July 15 (see The Source, 7/17/09).

According to the committee’s summary, the America’s Healthy Future Act, sponsored by Chair Max Baucus (D-MT), would cost $856 billion over ten years and would “ensure that Americans have quality, affordable health care coverage…improve the quality of care, increase efficiency within the health care system and lower health care costs…[and] promote preventive health care and wellness.”

The measure contains several provisions important to women and their families, including:

• standardized “Medicaid eligibility for all parents, children, pregnant women, and childless adults at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL)” ($30,000 a year for a family of four or $14,400 for an individual);
• maintenance of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) until its current authorization expires in September 2010. At that time, states would be required to provide children “between Medicaid eligibility levels and at least 250 FPL with wraparound coverage to supplement the core benefit package” available through state-based health insurance exchanges;
• a requirement that federal health programs “collect uniform data on race, ethnicity, gender, and disability to help program administrators and researchers work to end [health] disparities among these groups;
• funding for states, tribes, and territories to develop and implement evidence-based maternal, infant, and early childhood visitation programs. Such programs would “provide training and consultation aimed at reducing infant and maternal mortality and its related causes by producing improvements in prenatal, maternal, and newborn health, child health and development, parenting skills, school readiness, juvenile delinquency, and family economic self-sufficiency.”