On the recordMay 5, 2010
I rise today to join with my colleague from Wisconsin in introducing legislation, the Home Health Care Access Protection Act of 2010, to prevent future unfair administrative cuts in Medicare home health payment rates. Home health has become an increasingly important part of our health care system. The kinds of highly skilled and often technically complex services that our Nation's home health agencies provide have helped to keep families together and enabled millions of our most frail and vulnerable older and disabled persons to avoid hospitals and nursing homes and stay just where they want to be--in the comfort and security of their own homes. Moreover, by helping these individuals to avoid more costly institutional care, they are saving Medicare millions of dollars each year. That is why I find it so ironic--and troubling--that the Medicare home health benefit continually comes under attack. The health care reform bill that was recently signed into law by the President includes $40 billion in cuts to home care over the next ten years. Moreover, these cuts are a 'double-whammy' because they come on top of $25 billion in additional cuts to home health over the next ten years imposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through regulation. These cuts are particularly disproportionate for a program that costs Medicare less than $18 billion a year.
