On June 4, the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing entitled, "Investing in America's Health Care," focused on extending public health programs which are set to expire at the end of September or soon after. The programs discussed included those for community health centers, safety net hospitals, juvenile diabetes programs, and mental health and addiction treatment facilities, among others. While many of the programs enjoy bipartisan support, several Republicans on the committee expressed their concern about the lack of pay-fors and the absence of Hyde Amendment language banning federal funding of abortion for community health centers. Subcommittee Ranking Member Michael Burgess (R-TX) called on the subcommittee to consider a bill (H.R. 2700) that would use $5 billion in offsets from bipartisan drug pricing bills to pay for one year of extending the public health programs, many of which were previously coupled with legislation to stabilize the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges passed out of the House on a partisan basis.

Republicans also noted their concern with a bill (H.R. 3022) to permanently eliminate upcoming payment cuts to Disproportional Share Hospitals (DSH), noting that while they do not support the cuts imposed by the ACA, the bill would not make any changes to the underlying formula, which they view as flawed. Committee Republicans instead support a measure (H.R. 3054) that would delay or repeal the DSH cuts for two years.

For more details, see the attached Tax Alert.

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Hearing on healthcare extenders