Spotlight Resources - Health Care Reform

• Families USA: Americans at Risk: Report on the Uninsured - State Reports
• Alliance for Health Care Reform Sourcebook: Covering Health Issues
• Obama Administration's Health Care Reform Website
• HHS Report on Feedback Gathered during Health Care Community Discussions
• Kaiser: National Health Insurance - A Brief History of Reform Efforts in the U.S.
• Kaiser: Health Care and Medicaid -- Weathering the Recession

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House and Senate to Debate Budgets Next Week

The House and Senate Budget Committees each passed this week their version of the FY 2010 non-binding spending blueprint. The Senate is devoting next week solely to consideration of its $3.5 trillion budget resolution, which does not contain any reconciliation instructions. However, Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) said the possibility of using reconciliation is not "off the table." The House will turn its attention to its own version of the $3.5 trillion FY 2010 spending outline. Unlike the Senate version, the House resolution includes reconciliation instructions to help implement the president's health and education policies. Read more!

Section 811 Reform Legislation Reintroduced in House

Representatives Murphy (D-CT) and Biggert (R-IL) Re-Introduced on Monday Section 811 Reform Legislation. The Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act (H.R. 1675) would modernize the Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities program and create a Project-Rental Assistance Demonstration program to expand the supply of permanent supportive housing for low-income persons with disabilities. The Section 811 program is the only Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) permanent supportive housing program exclusively serving persons with disabilities. The new Section 811 legislation (H.R. 1675) was re-introduced with the same language as the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2008 (H.R. 5772), which passed in the House unanimously in September 2008. For more information, see the ANCOR Fact Sheet on this bill and information on ANCOR's Housing Web page on H.R. 5772. Read more!

CLASS Act Reintroduced in the Senate

Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Representatives Pallone (D-NJ) and Dingell (D-MI) Introduced this week the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The measure (S. 697), would provide a cash benefit that would help adults with severe functional impairments obtain the services and supports they need to live and work independently in their communities. One of the main purposes of the ANCOR-supported bill is to reduce the number of individuals forced to live in poverty just so they can qualify for Medicaid. For more information, see the CLASS Act Fact Sheet. Text of the bill is not yet available. Read more!

Individuals with Disabilities in Washington Increasingly Struggle to Find Employment During Recession

As unemployment rates rise, the competition for jobs is having an increasingly negative effect on individuals with disabilities seeking employment in Washington state. The state's policy shifted recently to focus more on integrating people with disabilities into the community through individual job placement but the troubled economy has made it difficult to implement this policy. Read more!

Federal Officials Scrutinizing North Carolina's Spending of Stimulus Money

North Carolina is one if sixteen states selected for special federal oversight of stimulus spending. Federal investigators are on the ground in North Carolina to ensure that money is spent for its intended purposes and to examine whether the spending is getting results. North Carolina Governor Perdue says she will focus on transparency and accountability in spending federal relief dollars. Read more!

State Spending Choices Key to Economic Recovery

Stateline reported this week that the way in which states spend stimulus money will determine how effective stimulus dollars are in aiding the economy. Read more!

Senate Committee Examines Long-Term Care Options for Health Care Reform

The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care held a hearing today entitled “The Role of Long-Term Care in Health Reform.” Subcommittee chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) began the hearing by telling witnesses that long-term care is an essential component of health care reform and must be included in current efforts to reform the health care system. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) also spoke of his strong support of home and community based services. Witnesses including Judy Feder, PhD., Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Dennis G. Smith, Senior Research Fellow in Health Care Reform at The Heritage Foundation, discussed the benefits of home and community based services, long-term care financing and options for improving long-term care programs funded through Medicaid. Witnesses emphasized the benefit to people with disabilities of strengthening home and community based services within the Medicaid program. Click here to download a video of the hearing.
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CMS Issues Fact Sheet and Q&A on Medicaid FMAP in the Recovery Package

CMS has released a fact sheet on new FMAP methodology and grant issuance, clarifications on the eligibility maintenance of effort (MOE) requirements, procedures for states to regain eligibility for the increased FMAP, and specific questions raised by states regarding the FMAP increase since the enactment of the ARRA. Read more!

Arizona’s Share of Enhanced FMAP at Risk

Arizona may be ineligible for $1.6 billion in enhanced FMAP funding through the economic recovery package due to state program changes prohibited in the recovery package rules. The state passed legislation in June 2008 that requires some Medicaid recipients to requalify for benefits every six months, rather than annually, beginning in September of 2008. CMS has determined that this rules change violates a recovery package maintenance of effort provision which prohibits states from receiving enhanced FMAP funds if the state tightened eligibility rules or procedures after July 1, 2008. Arizona has until July of this year to change the law and receive the enhanced FMAP. State officials say they will contest CMS’s determination because the new rules were passed into law before the July 2008 deadline. Arizona has already budgeted for $500 million of stimulus money and spent $300 million.

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President Obama Nominates Kathy Martinez to be Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy

Martinez currently works at the World Institute on Disability (WID) where she directs a program to increase employment opportunities for Latinos with disabilities in the United States, and Access to Assets, an asset-building project to help reduce poverty among people with disabilities. She also serves on the State Department advisory committee on disability and foreign policy and the National Council on Disability.
Read the press release.

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