The Labor-HHS spending bill of $123 billion, includes nearly $1 billion
for "1,600 individual earmarked projects."
From : kaisernetwork.org Daily Reports.
CAPITOL HILL WATCH
"Senate Passes Final Labor-HHS Spending Bill, Clearing Measure for
President's Signature
The Senate on Dec. 20 approved the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations
bill (HR 3061) on a 90-7 vote, providing spending increases for the NIH
and other programs, the
New York Times reports. The House approved the bill on Dec. 19 (Pear,
New York Times, 12/21). The bill includes the following:
$23.3 billion for the NIH;
$4.3 billion for the CDC;
$299 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality;
$175 million for community health centers;
$5 million for organ transplant programs at the Health Resources and
Services Administration; and
$3.1 billion for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration programs (HHS
release, 12/20).
'Pork' & Parity
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce
Committee, decried what he called "pork projects" totaling nearly $1
billion of the $123 billion bill, CongressDaily reports. Among the
projects he cited was $150,000 for a California therapeutic horseback
riding program that helps children with mental retardation and $1 million
for a London Shakespeare museum. House Labor-HHS Appropriations
subcommittee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) defended some of the bill's 1,600
individual earmarks, but McCain said that most of the projects benefited
states of legislators on the House Appropriations Committee and
"shortchanged" other states. Supporters of the Mental Health Equitable
Treatment Act of 2001 (
S 543) also were "unhappy" with the final Labor-HHS appropriations bill
(Rovner, CongressDaily, 12/20). On Dec. 18, members of a House-Senate
conference committee voted against adding the parity measure to the
Labor-HHS appropriations bill and instead approved extending the 1996
mental health parity law by one year (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report,
12/18). The amendment would have been an expansion of the 1996 law,
which expired on Sept. 30. That law prohibited private insurers from
establishing annual and lifetime limits on mental health benefits, unless
those same limits applied to other medical illnesses (Kaiser Daily Health
Policy Report, 10/31). The new bill would have attempted to close
loopholes in the 1996 law by requiring insurers that provide mental
health coverage to offer those benefits at the same level as the benefits
provided for physical health coverage with respect both to costs (such as
deductibles) and to access to services (Kaiser Daily Health Policy
Report, 12/13). Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, "The collective will of the Congress
has been flagrantly disregarded," adding that the parity measure had been
approved unanimously by his committee last summer and had the backing of
67 senators and 244 House members (CongressDaily, 12/20)."
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