House GOP advances Labor-HHS appropriations bill that blocks health law funding

Jul 19 2012

The proposed spending bill includes language preventing the use of federal dollars to "implement, administer or further" the Affordable Care Act. A number of other programs and agencies -- including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality -- are targeted for termination.

Politico: House GOP Unveils Death By 1,000 Cuts
Next up in the summer "Obamacare" reruns: more votes to defund the law. A week after the House voted to repeal the law completely, the House Appropriations Committee released a Labor-HHS spending bill for next year that would block the use of any of its funds to "implement, administer, enforce or further" the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Cheney, 7/17).

Politico Pro: House Bill Would Kill Health Research Agency
The House Labor-HHS appropriations bill would get rid of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality -; a decision that has been causing a mini-uproar among health care researchers since the provision came to light Tuesday afternoon. The bill, which will be marked up by the House Appropriations Labor-HHS subcommittee Wednesday, states that the agency would be "terminated" effective Oct. 1, 2012. ... By eliminating a health care quality agency that has existed for more than 20 years, the provision goes beyond the other defunding proposals in the bill, which mostly target agencies and programs under the Affordable Care Act. It was not mentioned in the official summary the Appropriations Committee released Tuesday morning (Dobias, 7/17).

The Associated Press: House GOP Measure Would Kill AmeriCorps Program
House Republicans Tuesday unveiled legislation to get rid of AmeriCorps, the national service program, and cut off federal funding for National Public Radio, public television and Planned Parenthood. The moves would come in a controversial spending bill that pays for labor, health and education programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 (Taylor, 7/17).

In other news, a coalition of business leaders, budgeteers and former politicians has launched a campaign to build support for a far-reaching fiscal plan.  

The Washington Post: Coalition Urges Tax Hikes, Entitlement Cuts To Tame National Debt
A coalition of business leaders, budget experts and former politicians launched a $25 million campaign Tuesday to build political support for a far-reaching plan to raise taxes, cut popular retirement programs and tame the national debt. With anxiety rising over a major budget mess looming in January, the campaign -; dubbed "Fix the Debt" -; is founded on the notion that the moment is finally at hand when policymakers will be forced to compromise on an ambitious debt-reduction strategy (Montgomery, 7/17).

CQ Healthbeat:  From the CQ Newsroom: Simpson-Bowles Authors Revisit Plan
Authors of the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan are rewriting their $4 trillion proposal to include an aggressive plan to control health care spending. The bipartisan group is trying to make the proposal politically palatable to Republicans as well as Democrats -; and address the largest projected driver of increased spending.  Crafted in 2010 by what is formally known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the proposal is also being revised to account for changes in the nation's fiscal picture, including enactment of the debt limit increase law last August (Krawzak, 7/17).