Liz Saville Roberts: “My colleague referred to--and I referred to it in my opening comments--the additional 15-percent cut across the board in…”

“My colleague referred to--and I referred to it in my opening comments--the additional 15-percent cut across the board in these payments to go into effect on October 1, 2001. With regard to what she has just related to the Senate, given the savings that have already been achieved, the question is obvious, is this additional cut necessary? I tell my colleagues and all those interested in this particular issue that last year we had to come up with an emergency bill. Nobody likes to do that. We would prefer it to go through authorization and appropriations. Nobody likes to be faced with an emergency bill. This year is the same way. We are wrestling with that in terms of the budget caps we should live with. We are trying to figure that out. Here we are willing to provide more emergency money and we turn around and go through another 15-percent cut. It seems to me that is not conducive to what we are about with regard to consistency. What effect would that have with regard to home health care agencies?”