January 21, 2011—As was widely expected, the GOP-controlled U.S. House voted 245 to 189 this week to repeal last year’s health care reform law and directed four committees yesterday to begin work on a replacement.
The Democratic-controlled Senate has vowed to block the repeal bill and President Obama has likewise vowed to veto it should it reach his desk. The resolution bearing the instructions to the four committees—Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, and Ways and Means—does not require Senate approval or the President’s signature.
HRSA Spending Eyed
An Energy and Commerce Committee document obtained by the newspaper The Hill and the online publication CQ Today indicates that the panel’s new Republican majority plans to examine the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) $80 billion discretionary budget “to identify cost savings and [to] make government operations more efficient.”
The five-page “backgrounder” lists the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) among three HHS agencies with “overlapping functions and duplicative programs.” HRSA is the parent of the Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA), which oversees the 340B drug discount program.
“As part of our commitment to balancing the budget and identifying wasteful spending, we will examine the budgets and functions of each of [these] agencies,” the document said. It also listed repealing and replacing health care reform and reforming Medicaid to give states more flexibility as top health priorities for the panel.
Implications for OPA Unclear
It is unclear whether OPA’s budget, currently set at a $2.2 million annual rate through March 4, would be part of the Energy and Commerce review. During a drug pricing conference last fall, the office’s director, Cmd. Krista Pedley, said OPA was spending about $15 million a year. HHS has historically covered OPA’s over-budget spending by shifting money to it from other accounts.
During the same event, Pedley said HRSA would not implement 340B program integrity measures enacted by Congress as part of health care reform, including new mandatory dispute resolution and civil monetary penalty processes, if OPA failed to secure more funding from the government.