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Health Care Legislation Hard To Defund

Guest post by: Irene Froehlich

Article Overview: Mandatory versus discretionary spending key factor in blocking Affordable Care Act and HITECH Act funding appropriations

Health Care Legislation Hard To Defund

In the 2010 election season, some candidates promised to defund the Affordable Care Act, a campaign message the mainstream media covered on an almost daily basis. What was rarely mentioned is just how difficult it actually is to defund legislation that has already passed.

This has changed. A recent USA Today article highlighted the reality that House rules prohibit members from legislating on appropriations bills. The article quotes, "In other words, they can't try to remove already-allocated mandatory funds."

Despite the clear rules here, one Congressman did put forth an amendment that would have blocked mandatory funds - which was shot down in the House rules committee by his own party. While subsequent House amendments to defund discretionary funding have been approved, it isn't likely the current Senate will pass them. And the recent stopgap spending bills have also left health care legislation funding intact.

Of course, what is of particular interest to many health care providers is how hard it would be to defund certain elements of the HITECH Act - specifically, the billions of dollars in incentive money promised to providers who make "Meaningful Use of EHR." Note that the 2009-2019 funding for the Meaningful Use programs is mandatory - and under Congressional rules, legislators cannot withhold appropriations for such programs.

And obviously, incentive money is already going out to qualified providers. States like Mississippi are expecting such a surge in the Meaningful Use program, they're setting up registries to handle incoming claims and to assure true Meaningful Use of EHR is actually being met.

We can't predict what a contentious Congress will do, but we'll continue to keep our readers posted on significant health care legislative events as they happen - and perhaps even more significantly, as they don't end up happening.

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Article Tags: hitech, hitech act, meaningful use, Meaningful Use EHR, Meaningful Use of EHR
Referred by: http://www.thehitsdoctor.com/



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