Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Ask Your Representative to Support a Hold on Harmful CMS Rules

Ask Your Representative to Support a Hold on Harmful CMS Rules
(as reported by the Bazelon Center http://www.bazelon.org)

March 20, 2008--Last week, Representatives John Dingell (D-MI) and TimothyMurphy (R-PA) introduced The Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008(H.R. 5613) to delay until April 9, 2009 implementation of seven cost-cuttingMedicaid regulations issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, whichmay consider it as early as April 1st.The seven rules include those that will reduce Medicaid recipients' access torehabilitative services, case management, school-based transportation andoutreach services, graduate medical education payments and hospital clinicservices. See the Bazelon Center's February 2008 Mental Health Policy Reporter.The regulations have drawn strong criticism from a range of stakeholders,including organizations representing people with disabilities, children andfamilies, hospitals, providers and state Medicaid directors.Unlike several bills introduced earlier, which target particular regulationsfor delay, (see, for example, our March 6 Alert on the case management rule),H.R. 5613 would impose a moratorium on all seven of the detrimentalrules.
Please Act Now!
Implementation of the Administration's damaging rules must be stopped!
Contact your Representative today to urge him or her to co-sponsor thebipartisan Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, H.R. 5613, imposinga moratorium on all seven harmful Medicaid regulations.
Timing is critical, to get as many bipartisan sponsors as possible before thecommittee markup.Now is also a good time to reach your Representative while home for the springcongressional recess. To find the home office, go to www.congress.org andsearch in the Congressional Directory; when your Representative's informationcomes up, click on the Contact tab and you'll see both the Washington andDistrict offices

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