Max Baucus: “I support the Health and Welfare Relief Act of 2005. This bill will provide funding for important initiatives that take…”

“I support the Health and Welfare Relief Act of 2005. This bill will provide funding for important initiatives that take effect in January 2006, just a few days from now. This morning the Senate passed, by the slimmest of margins, S. 1932, legislation to cut about $40 billion from mandatory spending programs over the next 5 years. I did not support S. 1932 because I believe it contains bad policy on Medicaid, on welfare, and on child support enforcement, among other things. For example, S. 1932 includes $5 billion in cuts to the child support enforcement program, which will mean that an estimated $19.6 million in child support funds will go uncollected in Montana over the next 10 years. That is money that should go to needy Montana kids. As for Medicaid, S. 1932 contains almost $2 billion in increased copays for Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as other Medicaid cuts. There are right ways to cut health care costs, through greater efficiencies that will save more money over time, and there is a wrong way to cut costs: on the backs of the Americans who can least afford to pay more for their health care. S. 1932 goes the wrong way and ignores the Senate's strong instruction to protect Medicaid beneficiaries from deep spending cuts. Last week 75 Senators supported a motion I offered in the Senate instructing budget conferees not to come back with a bill that included higher Medicaid copays and benefit cuts. Passage of S. 1932 is inconsistent with that vote. S.…”