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Vote on Budget Set for Feb. 1; Senior Groups Seek to
Sway GOP Moderates
Major cuts in senior citizen programs on the line in
vote
By ElderLawAnswers.com
Jan. 16, 2006 - House Speaker Dennis Hastert
(R-Ill.) has tentatively scheduled a re-vote on the 2006 budget
reconciliation bill (S 1932) for February 1, the day after the House
reconvenes following its winter recess. Moderate Republicans are feeling
mounting pressure from groups like AARP to change their votes.
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Among other provisions in a bill that cuts back
federal entitlement programs for the first time in a decade, the
legislation would impose punitive new restrictions on the ability of the
elderly to transfer assets before qualifying for Medicaid coverage of
nursing home care. (Click
here to read these provisions.)
The Senate passed the bill before Christmas, with
Vice President Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. However,
procedural moves by Senate Democrats require the House to vote on the
bill a second time after having passed it by a 212-206 margin at the end
of an all-night session.
Although House Republicans "expect to narrowly
approve the bill again, boosted by President Bush's State of the Union
speech the night before," according to
CongressDaily, groups opposed to the bill's cuts are working hard to
convince moderate Republicans to vote against it. Brian Riedl, a budget
analyst for the
Heritage Foundation, says, "[N]othing is guaranteed over a six-week
break."
Leading the fight against the bill is
AARP, which strongly opposes the transfer restrictions and has vowed
to make lawmakers who vote for them pay a political price. "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," said AARP's CEO
William D. Novelli.
Joining AARP is a temporary umbrella group, the
Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities (ECAP). Spokesperson
Brad Woodhouse said, "If they win, and we're not convinced they will, we
want to spill blood in the process so that they are gun-shy about
turning around and doing this again in the next budget." ECAP has
targeted some moderate Republicans at local vigils and is organizing
phone blitzes in advance of the vote.
"Clearly, moderate Republicans in the House were
reluctant to vote in favor of these drastic changes to Medicaid,"
reports the
National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC). According to NSCLC,
several Republicans who did not vote against the bill the first time
around delivered a letter in December to the congressional leadership
expressing objections to the scope of the Medicaid cuts.
Meanwhile, in his weekly radio address Saturday,
January 7, President Bush said Congress should "finish its work" and
pass the budget bill. Bush said that passage would show that the
"people's representatives can be good stewards of the people's money."
Bush also urged Congress to make all his tax cuts permanent. In an
opinion piece in the
San Jose Mercury, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said that House
Republicans should "scrap this poor excuse for a budget" and "instead
cancel some of the tax cuts for millionaires," which "would accomplish
the same thing -- deficit reduction -- but without harming our kids, our
elderly and the middle class."
Related ElderLawAnswers articles:
Senate Approves Punitive Transfer Rules As Cheney Breaks Tie
The Message of the Pending Asset Transfer Changes: Don't Delay Planning
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