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Republicans worry about healthcare law repeal's impact on health programs
President Obama's healthcare reform law skews healthcare funding in a way that would put many of the nation's medical programs at risk if the law is repealed, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Health subcommittee warned Wednesday.
Republicans - including Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) - have been calling for the law's repeal ever since it was passed. In his opening statement at a hearing on the Health and Human Services Department's proposed budget for FY 2013, Shelby said lawmakers should start taking a hard look at how they can mitigate some of the impacts of repealing the law as the Supreme Court this month prepares to hear hours of arguments for why it should strike it down.
"The administration has used the Affordable Care Act's mandatory spending, which is not subject to a vote by Congress every year, to backfill key discretionary programs," Shelby said in his opening remarks.
Shelby also raised concerns with the budget's flat-funding of medical research at the National Institutes of Health, at $31 billion. The administration says it is overhauling its NIH grant-making process in order to increase the number of new research grants.
Panel Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) also criticized the proposed budget, specifically its $4.5 billion cut to the $15 billion Prevention Fund he championed in the healthcare reform law.
"I don't know when we're going to learn that our mothers were right: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," Harkin said. "And that's true in healthcare."
