President Barack Obama indicated his health care priorities for his first year in office with the release of his fiscal year 2010 budget in late February. The budget included $630 billion during the next 10 years to finance health reform. The administration called this a “down payment on health reform,” noting that additional funding will need to be identified in order to cover all Americans. He off-set this reserve fund about half with new revenues and half—$316 billion—through savings in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The entitlement savings come from reductions in payments to Medicare Advantage programs, a higher premium for upper-income beneficiaries in the Medicare Part D drug program, increased rebates to states for prescription drugs in the Medicaid program, and additional payment reforms in the Medicare program designed to promote more cost-effective and high quality care.
Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, responded by announcing that he plans to begin “walking through” portions of comprehensive health care legislation with the full committee in April and May, mark up the bill in June, and pass it through the full Senate in July. They will break up the bill into sections on delivery system reform, cost containment, and coverage. The chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction over health reform in the House of Representatives—Ways and Means, Commerce and Education, and Labor Committees—have expressed in a letter to President Obama that the three committees plan to work together on the same legislation and that they will complete their work so it can pass the House before the August recess.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010 Budget also includes initiatives that:
- Build on the $19 billion in health information technology funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 by continuing increased payments to providers in the Medicare and Medicaid program who adopt electronic health records;
- Expand comparative effectiveness research;
- Begin the doubling of funding for cancer research;
- Increase funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and research;
- Provide an additional $330 million to address health professions’ workforce shortages;
- Increase funding for the Indian Health Services; and
- Begin to implement the president’s “Zero to Five” plan, which includes increased funding for Early Start and Head Start as well as a Nurse Home Visitation program for first-time, low-income mothers and mothers-to-be.
