The New York Times > Washington > Medicaid Panel Is Said to Be a Key to a Deal on Budget
Americans are going to die for lack of medical care. It's that simple.

WASHINGTON, April 26 - Republicans in Congress said Tuesday that they were near agreement with the White House on a proposal to break an impasse over the federal budget by setting up a commission on the future of Medicaid and by cutting the growth of the program by $10 billion over the next five years.

Administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress said they hoped that a deal on Medicaid would clear the way for a broader agreement on the contours of the federal budget - a budget resolution, in the language of Capitol Hill. The House and Senate last month passed competing versions of a $2.57 trillion budget for 2006, but spokesmen for the budget committees in both chambers said Tuesday night that they were close to reconciling those differences.

"There is a broad outline of consensus," Sean Spicer, spokesman for the House Budget Committee, said, adding "There are details that still have to be worked out."

The sticking points included not only proposed cuts to Medicaid, which provides health insurance for more than 50 million low-income people, but also questions of how far to extend President Bush's tax cuts and whether to include a provision clearing the way for oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge.

Medicaid is the biggest point in dispute.The Bush administration first opposed the idea of a study commission, seeing it as a way to postpone decisions over how to rein in the program's explosive growth.

Aides to Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, said administration officials had agreed to accept Mr. Smith's demand for a commission in hopes of securing support from him and other moderate Republicans for $10 billion worth of cutbacks in projected Medicaid spending over the next five years.

Democrats denounced the proposed cutbacks. "The Republican leadership knew they could not defeat a motion to protect Medicaid," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader. "They negotiated behind closed doors to include Medicaid cuts in the final budget report, regardless of how the majority in both houses vote."

Federal and state spending on Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance program, has grown an average of 10 percent a year over the last five years and now totals more than $300 billion annually.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, has been negotiating with Mr. Smith for two weeks. Under the deal proposed by the administration, President Bush would accept a commission and Mr. Smith would agree to cut $10 billion from projected Medicaid spending over five years.

Mr. Bush proposed $13 billion in Medicaid savings over five years. The House version of the budget envisioned Medicaid savings of $15 billion to $20 billion.

More and more coming to Medicaid everyday because they can't afford insurance. And when they get there in the future- nothing.

I'll say it bluntly and boldly- what this administration, and the fuckwads in Congress are proposing, is a death sentence on thousands of Americans.

Meanwhile, the rich get to keep their tax cuts. The coporations get to keep their tax breaks. Your tax breaks? Well, we will be looking at that soon. Apparently there are too many. Ha ha. Suckers.

But at least those gays can't marry. Happy now America?