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Relating To Consideration of H.R. 6111, Tax Relief And Health Care Act of 2006

Date: Dec. 8, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care


RELATING TO CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6111, TAX RELIEF AND HEALTH CARE ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - December 08, 2006)

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for yielding me this time.

As I was reading through the 279 pages of this bill last night, on page 148 I stumbled across division B, title I, section 111. It was here I found a provision that seemed rather obscure but turns out to be a part of the bill that is required to be there by the Senate minority leader for the bill to pass. This section contains a redesignation for a hospice satellite program, specifically Medicare provider number 29-1511. Apparently, this redesignation would allow the facility to exceed its reimbursement cap, which sounds an awful lot like an earmark to me. I understand this program is located in Nevada and the provision was advocated by the Senate minority leader, a constant and vocal critic of hiding earmarks. The public often wonders how these unusual things get funded by the government. The reason is because the language is written like this:

``Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for purposes of calculating the hospice aggregate payment cap for 2004, 2005, and 2006 and for a hospice program under section 1814(i)(2)(A) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395f(i)(2)(A)) for hospice care provided on or after November 1, 2003, and before December 27, 2005, Medicare provider number 29-1511 is deemed to be a multiple location of Medicare provider number 29-1500.''

It is clear this agency has violated the rules for at least 3 years and the minority leader is bailing it out with an earmark, those horrible things that the minority party has taken such objection to in the past few months. However, now that they have used the subject to win a majority, they continue to use the practice. We are castigated for not passing budgets and other bills, but one reason has been the minority leaders often demand earmarks. Furthermore, they demand that their fingerprints not be on those earmarks.

I think it is important that we point out the double standard practiced by the minority leadership.

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