Another Chance to Stop Medicaid Cuts

Background     Details on the House-Senate Conference Report on Budget Reconciliation An analysis of the conference report prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

December 23, 2005—As reported in our December 22 Alert, the draconian budget reconciliation bill that cuts Medicaid and other programs for low-income people was derailed in the Senate by a last-minute procedural move. As a result, the bill was not enacted into law.

This gives advocates for low-income people another chance to fight these drastic changes. When Congress returns at the end of January 2006, the House will again take up the issue. 

Some Representatives May Change Votes

Right now, however, members of the House are home for the holiday break and you have an opportunity to educate them about the dire impact of the proposed cuts. There is a good chance that some of the members who approved the reconciliation bill earlier, after having had almost no time to study its provisions, can be persuaded to change their vote.

Advocacy groups have created a list of Representatives who, if they hear more about the bill from constituents, might vote against it this time. This list appears at the end of this email.

Act Now to Educate Your Representative!

Check the list and if your Representative’s name appears, call or visit his or her district office to explain why the bill should be rejected. If you don’t know the address and phone number, you can look it up on www.congress.org.

Ask your Representative to vote NO on the budget reconciliation bill.

For mental health advocates, the worst problems are in the Medicaid provisions. Tell your Representative these proposals would:

• Seriously harm people with mental illnesses—particularly those with serious disorders who need access to a full array of community services (as medically necessary). This bill would place many in alternative plans modeled on private insurance. Private insurance typically has extremely restrictive mental health coverage.


• Weaken the EPSDT protection for children. Children currently are entitled to early and periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment (defined as access to any Medicaid-covered service, whether or not it is in the state’s Medicaid plan). If it stands, the bill would give children two benefits, one modeled on private insurance plans and a second with other Medicaid services. But many families are unlikely to know how to access the broader benefit and states may require prior approval as a roadblock.


• Force low-income people with mental illnesses to pay premiums and co-payments that many cannot afford. Providers would be allowed to deny care to those who can’t pay co-payments, and states could cut them off Medicaid entirely if they fail to pay premiums.


• Reduce access to targeted case management services, which link people to other critical services and allow for ongoing monitoring of their situation and treatment.

Target List of House Members