To ‘Salvage’ $28 Billion ‘Set Aside’ in Budget for Uninsured, Congress Must ‘Move Quickly’ to Draft Bill, Post Editorial Says

By focusing on the patients' rights debate -- a "peripheral issue" that may "slightly" improve "the lot of the already insured" -- Congress appears to be addressing the "national health care problem," a Washington Post editorial states. This "spectacle," however, ignores the uninsured, "the ones in whose behalf Congress should be working hardest." Yet, the Post notes that if Congress "move[s] quickly," it can reduce the number of the uninsured by appropriating $28 billion that was "set aside" in the FY2002 budget resolution for the purpose of expanding health coverage (Washington Post, 7/27). The $99 billion budget package includes a provision drafted by Oregon Sens. Gordon Smith (R) and Ron Wyden (D) that called for Congress to allocate $28 billion over three years toward a plan that would broaden health coverage through a combination of Medicaid and CHIP program expansions and tax deductions for employers who help their low-income workers pay for private insurance. However, the health care spending provision carries no specific spending requirements; Congress would have to pass separate legislation detailing how and where to spend the funding (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 5/4). The provision stipulates the $28 billion will only be available as long as there is a budget surplus, excluding Social Security funds. However, additional congressional spending plans, the recently passed $1.35 trillion tax cut and a "weakening economy" may "eliminate" the surplus, effectively killing the provision, the Post states. Therefore, Congress needs to "salvage" the funding by "crank[ing] out a bill," the editorial says. Although the Senate Finance Committee has been preparing to draft a spending proposal, those plans have been delayed until after the August recess -- when "it may be too late." While the GOP "spent a lot of time deploring the plight of the uninsured" during the patients' rights debate, they did not act to spend the $28 billion while they controlled the Senate. Now that the Democrats manage the chamber, they too "seem in no hurry" to appropriate the funds. The Post concludes: "Too bad, they'll say if the money lapses -- and they'll be right" (Washington Post, 7/27).