Action Alerts

Ongoing:

• An action alert on long term services and supports was sent on Oct 30^th to constituents in the following states- AR, CT, VA, IN, LA, NE, ND, and VA. A sincere thank you to all those who called and faxed their Senators in these states.

Major Events Last Week

Health Care Reform

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sent legislation reflecting a merger between the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and Finance Committees' bills to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for a cost estimate. The bill contains a public option for the new health insurance exchange with an opt-out for states. It is unclear whether conservative members of the Democratic caucus will support this option. The measure will be made public when the CBO estimate is complete. President Obama has set a limit of $900 billion for a final health care bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) introduced the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) which reflects the merger of the health reform bills of the three House committees with jurisdiction over health reform. The bill, estimated by CBO to cost $894 billion over ten years, includes several provisions that are important to people with disabilities including:

• Significant insurance market reforms including prohibition of pre-existing conditions exclusions, eliminations of annual and lifetime caps, and limits on annual cost sharing;
• Coverage of rehabilitation and habilitation services, durable medical equipment (e.g. wheelchairs), prosthetics, orthotics, and related supplies in the essential benefits package to be offered by all plans participating in the new health insurance Exchange;
• An increase in the Medicaid reimbursement rate for physicians to Medicare rates with significant federal funding;
• A six month extension of the FMAP increase (Federal share of Medicaid spending) provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;
• Data collection on health disparities will include disability for the first time; and
• The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act which establishes a self-sustaining, actuarially sound, national, premium-based insurance plan to assist people with the costs of long term services and supports without requiring the individual to become impoverished to qualify.

The cost of the House bill was calculated without using the $72 billion in savings generated by the CLASS Act, because the CLASS funds must be set-aside for future benefits payments.

FY 2010 Appropriations

Congress passed and the President signed into law a second Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded because most of the fiscal 2010 spending bills have yet to be enacted. The new CR lasts through Dec. 18 and provides funding at last year's levels for agencies still awaiting 2010 budgets. These include the agencies that are most important to the disability community - the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The House and Senate Appropriations Chairmen have stated their desire to finish all the separate funding bills by Thanksgiving, but they are not optimistic. Many anticipate an omnibus appropriations bill to fund these agencies.

Housing

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced that they will work with Congress to identify a financing source for the National Housing Trust Fund. The Trust Fund will create over 1 million units of affordable and accessible housing targeted to people with extremely low incomes. In its FY 2010 budget, the Administration proposed $1 billion for the Trust Fund. For more information, see:
http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/
press/press_releases_media_advisories/
2009/HUDNo.2009-10-29

Major Events Ahead

Health Care Reform

TThe House Democratic leadership will spend the early part of the week ironing out concerns from conservative members of the Democratic caucus about abortion and immigration related issues in health reform. If those issues are resolved, the leadership has tentatively scheduled to begin debate on the Affordable Health Care for America Act later in the week. The Republicans are expected to offer a substitute measure.

Announcements

Transportation Dialogue

The "United We Ride" National Dialogue begins today. The dialogue is a chance to offer suggestions on how to increase access to affordable and reliable transportation services for people with disabilities, older adults, and people with limited incomes. The online dialogue will continue through November 13^th. Join it at:
www.uwrdialogue.org.

Medicare Benefits Tool

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that people with Medicare and family members can begin to review their 2010 coverage options through Medicare's improved online tools. Improvements to the plan ratings, search features and plan coverage descriptions will make it easier for beneficiaries to compare their drug and health plan coverage for 2010. Beneficiaries will be able to make changes to their Medicare health and drug coverage during the open enrollment period, which begins on Nov. 15, and ends Dec. 31. Beneficiaries will find several new enhancements on the Medicare Health Options Compare and Prescription Drug Plan Finder located at www.medicare.gov.

People without Web access can get the same information provided by the online plan comparison tools by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) or by contacting their local State Health Insurance Assistance Program office for free personalized counseling:
http://www.medicare.gov/Contacts/staticpages/ships.aspx

Emergency Management Working Group and Web site

President Obama created The Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group that includes 20 federal departments, agencies, and offices to develop a national strategy of disaster response and recovery. The working group is co-chaired by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Donovan and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano. A new website is available for public input into improving national disaster recovery efforts following disasters:
http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/

Please note that you can view previous issues of the Capitol Insider, at UCP.org anytime by choosing "Capitol Insider" under "Public Policy."

Read previous Capitol Insider issues now.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at acosta@thedpc.org.

Sincerely,

Annie Acosta
Director of Communications and Grassroots
Disability Policy Collaboration