The House on April 10 voted 216-214 to pass the Senate-amended budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 14, PDF). The Senate previously voted 51-48 to approve the resolution, which establishes a floor for minimum spending cuts, extends the debt limit until 2027, and allows for $1.5 trillion in tax policies, using the “current policy baseline” to address the cost of extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97) [refer to Washington Highlights, April 4].
Prior to the vote, AAMC Chief Public Policy Officer Danielle Turnipseed, JD, MHSA, MPP, issued a statement underscoring the association’s concerns with the potential for cuts to critical health care programs, and, in particular, its instruction for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to identify at least $880 billion in savings to offset non-health care priorities. “We remain deeply concerned that the budget reconciliation process could eventually lead to unsustainable funding cuts to federal health programs, like Medicaid, that would endanger access to care for millions of patients and ability for health care providers to serve them,” the statement said.
Now that the House and Senate have agreed upon an identical budget resolution, the committees will commence their work to prepare and report legislation that fulfills their spending instructions.