Action Alert: Preserve Vital Programs to Help Social Security Beneficiaries Work

Major Events Last Week
 
Budget – House passes budget reconciliation that targets Medicaid and other low income programs

On May 10, by a vote of 218 to 199, the House passed a bill to stop most of the $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts for FY 2013 scheduled to take effect in January under the Budget Control Act (BCA). It would do so by further reducing the cap on discretionary programs and by cutting mandatory programs. It would lower the cap for non defense discretionary programs by $19 billion, on top of the 6% reduction already required by the BCA in 2013. Mandatory programs would be cut by $310 billion over a decade through a “budget reconciliation” process, disproportionately targeted to programs for low income populations. These cuts include the following that would adversely affect people with disabilities:

• Medicaid reductions of $28 billion over 10 years. This would occur through changes in provider taxes, hospital payments, maintenance of effort (MOE) requirements, and payments to territories. People with disabilities would likely face decreased Medicaid eligibility and benefits as the states adjust to the reduced federal participation.
• Repeal of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). The $1.7 billion SSBG enables each state to provide social services that include special services to persons with disabilities. One of the SSBG’s five goals is preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care by providing for home and community-based services.
• Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly known as food stamps). Monthly assistance for 44 million people would be cut by $35 billion and 2 million people will lose SNAP benefits entirely.
• Increase repayment charges for people who receive health insurance subsidies.  An estimated 350,000 people would likely forgo coverage, making it more difficult for the health reform law’s insurance exchanges to function effectively.  People with low incomes who received the subsidies would be affected if their incomes increase later in the year because they found a job, received a promotion, got married, or for another such reason.
• Elimination of the Prevention and Public Health Fund. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) established this fund to expand investments in prevention and public health, to improve health outcomes, and to enhance health care quality.
• Revisions to the medical liability system by capping non-economic damages to $250,000, limiting attorneys’ fees and other changes.

However, the reconciliation process is not likely to proceed beyond the House of Representatives. A budget resolution, with reconciliation instructions, is unlikely to pass the Senate. However, the existence of a concrete plan to replace the unpopular automatic cuts could give House leaders leverage in discussions that will likely occur later this year, about how to stop the automatic cuts.
 
Medicaid – Implementation of key aspects of the Affordable Care Act

The Arc joined with the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) to submit comments on two regulations implementing key aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The regulations pertain to how states are to establish the private health insurance markets known as the health insurance exchanges for individuals and small businesses, in addition to implementing changes in Medicaid eligibility required by the ACA. The CCD comments focused on recommendations for strengthening coordination between Medicaid and the exchanges.  The comments are posted on the CCD website.
 
Major Events Ahead

Social Security – Senate to Hold Oversight Hearing

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing titled “The Social Security Administration: Is it Meeting its Responsibilities to Save Taxpayer Dollars and Serve the Public?” Visit the Committee web site to review the hearing announcement and for testimony and video the day of the hearing.
 
Announcements  

Employment / Discrimination Complaints

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has private sector workplace discrimination complaint statistics (called “charge receipts” by EEOC) for each of the nation’s 50 states and U.S. Territories for Fiscal Years 2009-2011 available on its website.  These data provide a look at EEOC charge receipts, broken down by the basis of discrimination, as well as the percent of total state and national charges. The state data tables are available online at the EEOC website.
 
  

• Repeal of the “maintenance of effort” requirements on states for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The legislation would allow states to apply more restrictive eligibility standards for programs. The draft bill also would reduce the federal Medicaid match rate for U.S. territories from 55 percent to 50 percent, as well as cut the health care provider tax from the current 6 percent threshold to no greater than 5.5 percent.
• Repeal of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). The $1.7 billion SSBG enables each state to provide social services that include special services to persons with disabilities. One of the SSBG’s five goals is preventing or reducing inappropriate institutional care by providing for home and community-based services.
• Increase repayment charges for people who receive health insurance subsidies.  People with low incomes who received the subsidies would be affected if their incomes increase later in the year because they found a job, received a promotion, got married, or other reason.
• Elimination of the Prevention and Public Health Fund. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) established this fund to expand investments in prevention and public health, to improve health outcomes, and to enhance health care quality.
• Revisions to the medical liability system by capping non-economic damages to $250,000, limiting attorneys’ fees, and other changes.

 
Democrats intend to offer an alternative plan for replacing the spending cuts that they say will be more balanced. According to press reports, Budget Committee Democrats may propose eliminating tax breaks that benefit some companies in an effort to increase tax revenue instead of finding additional spending cuts.
 
The House floor vote is currently scheduled for May 10^th. However, the reconciliation process is not likely to proceed beyond the House of Representatives. A budget resolution, with reconciliation instructions, is unlikely to pass the Senate. However, the existence of a concrete plan to replace the automatic cuts could give House leaders leverage in discussions that will likely occur later this year about how to stop the automatic cuts.
 
 
Announcements  
 
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issues a correction – Comment period extended
 
On May 1, 2012 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a correction to a proposed rule announced on April 26. The proposed rule, which would give states more flexibility to offer home and community-based services and support to Medicaid enrollees, originally set a 30-day public comment period ending June 4. The proposed rule as corrected allows for a 60-day public comment period ending July 2.
 
Both the rule and the correction were officially published in the Federal Register on May 3:

• Proposed rule
• Correction

 
Housing – Report on Fair Housing Trends Documents Discrimination against People with Disabilities
 
The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) has released its annual report on fair housing trends. As noted in their press release, “In 2011, the largest share of housing discrimination cases, about 44 percent, involved discrimination against people with disabilities.” Under the federal Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability, or familial status in rental housing, real estate sales, lending, insurance, and any financial or other services related to housing. To read NFHA’s 2012 Trends Report, go to www.nationalfairhousing.org.
 
Social Security – Social Security Statement Now Available Online
 
A new online version of the Social Security Statement is now available. The online Statement provides eligible workers with access to their Social Security earnings and benefit information. It provides estimates people can use to plan for retirement, and also provides estimates for disability and survivors benefits. The Social Security Administration (SSA) encourages everyone to check the Statement once a year. To get a personalized Statement, people age 18 and older must be able to provide, through a secure system, information about themselves that matches information already on file with Social Security. SSA anticipates some members of the public will not be able to be verified through this process. In instances where this occurs, people will have the option to request a paper Social Security Statement be mailed to them. To learn more, visit www.socialsecurity.gov/mystatement.