AARP Reaction to 2006 Bud get Reconciliation

News Release

December 21, 2005

AARP CEO, William D. Novelli, made the following statement today in response to the 2006 budget reconciliation:

This is a sad day in history for the 109th Congress and all American families. Instead of standing up for those who are most vulnerable, today Congress voted to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical and managed care industries.

Throughout this entire debate AARP acknowledged the need to improve Medicaid. We tried hard to ensure a responsible policy that achieved the goals of preventing abuse, but still protected those who innocently helped grandchildren and or gave to charities. It is shameful that the final budget contains measures that penalize innocent people, threaten their ability to keep their homes, and shows a preference for protecting the powerful at the expense of millions of Americans.

This budget represents bad policy and AARP will now work to explain the full impact of this vote to its more than 36 million members.

The Alzheimer's Association Statement on Passage of the Bud get Reconciliation Bill  (HR 4241/ S 1932)

December 21, 2005

The Alzheimer's Association is extremely disappointed in budget legislation passed by the Senate this week that may deny Medicaid benefits to deserving older and disabled Americans, who have no place else to turn for their long term care needs. The legislation makes seniors the victims in this attempt to reform federal health care programs. This bill could have a devastating impact on millions of Americans with Alzheimer's disease, who will be forced to turn to Medicaid because they have depleted their own resources on costly care. Currently, more than 850,000 Americans with Alzheimer's disease rely on Medicaid for help.

The legislation's Medicaid changes include three provisions that are particularly burdensome to those with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. One increases the number of years that a person's finances are subjected to government audit. A second would penalize elderly Medicaid applicants after they've already depleted their resources and are in need of costly care. And, the third denies Medicaid assistance to anyone who happens to own a house that has increased in value beyond an arbitrary amount set by the government.

These changes may put nursing homes in the position of kicking out residents who are declared ineligible after they have been admitted. It also may prevent people from getting into nursing care facilities in the first place or from receiving necessary care at home and in the community. For many, Medicaid is a last resort. The changes the Senate passed, while directed to a few affluent Americans who would hide assets in order to qualify for government support, could in reality eliminate any chance for many vulnerable, modest income people who are suffering from Alzheimer's disease of ever receiving the care and support they need.

To ensure these new legislative changes don't victimize elderly Americans who need and deserve assistance from the Medicaid program, we call on Congress to create a special monitoring program within the federal government that will collect vital information on who is being denied access to help. We also call on the government to work on a meaningful and dramatic reform of our nation's health and long term care system especially as it affects older Americans and people with chronic illnesses like Alzheimer's disease. Medicare and Medicaid will falter and fail if we as a nation don't face the looming crisis of an aging baby boom generation and the growing burden of chronic disease. The United States needs to initiate a dialog focusing on a national long-term health care policy, not driven by budget deficits, but by sound policy.

The Alzheimer's Association is ready to work with Congress to develop a national long-term care policy, which must include as one component a national commitment to preventing diseases, such as Alzheimer's, that are creating the enormous financial and emotional burdens confronting Americans today. Research indicates that delaying the onset of Alzheimer's will, in five years, save the Medicaid program five times more than what the Senate cut out of budget this week. Making strategic investments in America 's future is sound policy.

The Alzheimer's Association, the world leader in Alzheimer research and support, is the first and largest voluntary health organization dedicated to finding prevention methods, treatments and an eventual cure for Alzheimer's. For 25 years, the donor-supported, not-for-profit Alzheimer's Association has provided reliable information and care consultation; created supportive services for families; increased funding for dementia research; and influenced public policy changes.

Contact
Alzheimer's Association
Media line: 1.312.335.4078

  The Washington Post Editorial on the Passage of the Budget Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001376_pf.html   

A Bad Finish

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 ; A30

Maybe there's been an uglier end to a congressional session than the closing days of the first year of the 109th Congress. But for undemocratic maneuvers, skewed priorities and capitulation to powerful lobbies, this week sets a particularly low bar for congressional behavior. Vice President Cheney has rushed back from an overseas trip to cast what could be a tie-breaking Senate vote to pass the budget package. Here's hoping a last-minute change of heart will kill this deal and make his trip for naught.

"An exercise in budget discipline," acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) called the agreement to save close to $40 billion in mandatory spending over the next five years. An exercise in self-delusion and the power of special interests is more like it. Start with the pretense that this Congress has buckled down to tackle the deficit. It hasn't. The $40 billion in budget cuts -- much of which doesn't consist of cuts at all but of money raised by things such as selling off the broadcast spectrum -- is, if Republican leaders get their way, to be followed by an even greater amount in tax cuts next year. So the 109th Congress will have added to the deficit, not trimmed it. Lawmakers got around their self-imposed spending caps by labeling expenses such as flu preparedness as emergency spending. Some discipline.

Moreover, the cuts themselves underscore the absence of congressional will to inflict real pain -- especially on those who write campaign checks. Gone in the final version were provisions that made cuts at the expense of insurance companies and drug makers. When Ohio House Republicans threatened to walk over Medicare cuts that would hurt a home-state manufacturer of medical oxygen tanks, those were stripped out as well, The Post's Jonathan Weisman reported. Remaining, though smaller than originally envisioned, were cuts in Medicaid and child support enforcement. In the Senate, where the vote balance is precarious, Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) seems to have agreed to switch his original vote and support the measure after White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove helped sweeten the deal by reversing a cut in sugar subsidies, according to Congress Daily. While Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter described the agreement as one "to hold one's nose and let it go through," we're hoping he concludes the odor is too strong.

As unattractive as the substantive choices lawmakers made were the procedures they resorted to. Drug companies were given special protection against lawsuits for flu vaccines -- a provision put in the defense spending bill after members of the conference committee signed what was supposed to be the final agreement. Whether or not this provision is a good idea, it's not one that should be crammed into a take-it-or-leave-it, must-pass measure without a single member of Congress having a separate chance to consider its wisdom. Lawmakers engaged in a similarly undemocratic dodge when they stripped the provision on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the budget package -- it wouldn't have passed the House otherwise -- and tacked it onto the defense measure.

N o lawmaker heading home for the holidays should feel that there's much to celebrate in this frenzy of backroom dealmaking and dishonest posturing.