Senate Approves Supplemental War Appropriations Bill With Medicaid Provision; Bush Expected To Sign Measure

The Senate on Thursday voted 92-6 to approve a $257.5 billion supplemental war appropriations bill (HR 2642) with a provision that would delay for one year six new Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration, CongressDaily reports (Sanchez, CongressDaily, 6/27). The House passed the legislation on June 19.

The bill includes $21.1 billion in domestic spending (Rogin, CQ Today, 6/26). The legislation includes $4.6 billion for Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals (Kane, Washington Post, 6/27). The bill originally had included $157 million for six Louisiana hospitals that experienced financial losses after Hurricane Katrina, but the final version did not include the funds (Shields, Baton Rouge Advocate, 6/27).

President Bush likely will sign the legislation next week (Washington Post, 6/27).

Senate Panel Passes Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted 26-3 to approve a fiscal year 2009 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill that includes $153.1 billion in discretionary spending, $7.7 billion more than Bush requested, CQ Today reports. The legislation would increase the NIH budget to at least $30 billion.

Before passage of the bill, the committee by voice vote approved an amendment that would negate an SCHIP policy directive issued by the Bush administration on Aug. 17, 2007. The policy directive requires states to enroll 95% of children in families with annual incomes as much as 200% of the federal poverty level in SCHIP before they expand the program to children in families with annual incomes more than 250% of the poverty level.

The committee also approved an amendment sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) that would require NIH to increase efforts to monitor possible conflicts of interest among outside scientists who receive research grants from the agency.

Bush has threatened to veto the bill. In addition, the House version of the bill faces an "uncertain" future, as tactics by Republicans "angered Democrats, leading them to break off the mark up and threaten to halt the regular appropriations process for the rest of the year," CQ Today reports.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said that he plans to have the committee approve the 12 appropriations bills by the end of July. However, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the full Senate likely will not vote on any of the bills this year (Wayne, CQ Today, 6/26).