Senate OKs Spending Bill With Mandatory Increases for Health Care
On Sunday, the U.S. Senate approved a $446.8 billion omnibus spending bill (HR 3288) that combines six of the seven remaining fiscal year 2010 appropriations bills, CQ Today reports.
The omnibus bill includes the Financial Services (HR 3170), Commerce-Justice-Science (HR 2847), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3293), Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 3082), State-Foreign Operations (HR 3081) and Transportation-HUD (HR 3288) appropriations bills (Vadala/Nylen, CQ Today, 12/13).
Congressional leaders are holding the final appropriations bill for the Department of Defense (HR 3326) until next week to determine what other legislation can be added to it (Vadala/Nylen, CQ Today, 12/13).
The bill passed by a vote of 57-35, largely along party lines.
Three Democrats -- Sens. Evan Bayh (Ind.), Russ Feingold (Wis.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) -- aligned with Republicans and voted against the bill (Brady, Roll Call, 12/13).
The House passed the spending package last week (Stern, CQ Today, 12/14).
The legislation includes an additional $650 billion in mandatory spending for federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid (AP/USA Today, 12/14).
Veterans Affairs programs, as well as military construction, would receive $78 billion under the bill, which is slightly more than President Obama requested and 7% more than the $72.9 billion appropriate the year prior (CQ Today, 12/13).
Labor-HHS-Education, the largest of the FY 2010 appropriations bills, would provide a total of $730.6 billion, which is 9% more than FY 2009 levels and 0.3% above President Obama's request (CQ Today, 12/14).
The bill would continue existing federal restrictions on abortion (CQ Today, 12/13).
The package includes $603.7 billion for HHS, much of which is mandatory spending for programs like Medicaid and Medicare (CQ Today, 12/14). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.