The first bill before us - the Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act - makes some changes to how hospitals are reimbursed under Medicare. The major pieces are important technical fixes to correct issues from the budget bill passed late last year.
The budget bill passed by the House in November fixed a problem where hospitals were purchasing off-campus facilities and using them as ‘Hospital Outpatient Departments’ to bill Medicare at the higher rate. But the budget bill didn’t include an exception for facilities that were already under development - where hospitals had already made significant investments but weren’t yet up and running. This bill brings fairness to those hospitals.
Almost all of the other provisions in the bill have also previously passed this Committee with bipartisan support.
Mr. McDermott has worked to improve Medicare beneficiary notification. I believe that this change will improve the information beneficiaries get when they become Medicare eligible.
On the TANF bills before us, an opening was already given for the first bill when it came up during our previous markup. And my colleague, Mr. Doggett, will deliver brief remarks on the second bill.
Regarding the deposition transcript - I want to be clear that this is just another effort by the Majority to try to undermine the Affordable Care Act. More than 20 million Americans have health coverage today that didn’t previously thanks to the health reform law, yet the Republicans are doing everything in their power to take that away.
The deposition covered the same subject matter as a lawsuit brought against the Administration by the House Majority. In that lawsuit, the attorneys on both sides have stipulated to the facts - so there is no disagreement as to the facts upon which the case will proceed in court.
This use of this Committee’s deposition authority is unprecedented. And the simple fact that the deposition was done without any consultation with the Democrats before issuing the subpoena shows that the Majority’s primary purpose is political.
Still, the Administration has voluntarily made available 10 former and current employees for questioning regarding this so-called investigation.
The Majority is trying to have it both ways. They file a lawsuit, they stipulate to the facts, and now the court will decide. In the meanwhile, they undertake a fishing expedition, the main purpose of which, as I said earlier, is to try to undermine the Affordable Care Act after voting more than 60 times on the House Floor.
