The Congressional Budget Deal ' s Effect on Health Care

In early February, Congress passed a massive bipartisan budget deal to fund the government through March 23, 2018, suspend the debt ceiling until 2019, raise budget caps by nearly $300 billion over two years, and fund various parts of the government. Naturally, passage of the budget agreement means that quite a few health care priorities made their way into the law. For example, several health care “extenders” were reauthorized, community health centers (CHCs) were funded, cuts to safety net hospitals were delayed, as were cuts to the CHRONIC Care Act and the Part B Improvement Act, while revisions to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) were made. Then, the deal reached in the Senate added $6 billion in funding to address opioid and mental health treatment, $4 billion for VA hospitals, and $2 billion in new funding for research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Senate deal also extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) by an additional four years — a ten-year extension when combined with the six-year reauthorization secured last month. Interestingly, the agreement also permanently repeals Medicare’s moribund Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), while also making adjustments to the prescription drug “donut hole” that will require pharmaceutical companies to provide steeper discounts for seniors in the coverage gap. IPAB Repealed Before it could go into effect, Congress included the repeal ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs