OOPS Should have posted last week: AFSCME LEGISLATIVE REPORT July 20, 2007

[Omaha Steve]

Below are the top stories of the week from Capitol Hill.

AFSCME LEGISLATIVE REPORT
July 20, 2007

In this issue:

* House Passes Labor, Health and Human Services and Education FY 2008 Spending Bill
* Collective Bargaining Bill Passes the House of Representatives
* AFSCME Scores Major Privatization Victory in House Committee
* Senate Panel Approves Children's Health Insurance Bill; Floor Debate Set for Next Week
* Private Tax Collectors Given the Boot
* House Committee Passes Bill Improving Mental Health Insurance Coverage
* Senate Clears Student Loan Bill After Rejecting Anti-Labor Amendment

House Passes Labor, Health and Human Services and Education FY 2008 Spending Bill
After three days of debate and rejecting various rightwing lawmakers' attempts to reduce spending for the largest domestic spending bill, the House passed its FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services (Labor-HHS) and Education appropriations bill (H.R. 3043) on July 19 by a vote of 276 to 140. Reversing years of flat funding, across-the-board cuts and lost purchasing power, the House's spending bill provides a 4.8 percent overall increase for programs in the bill, including funding boosts for child care, Head Start, the Employment Service, K-12 education, community health centers and Pell Grants.

Through the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities (ECAP), AFSCME and its affiliates led field and press work in 41 primarily Republican districts. Eighty percent of these targeted members voted the right way?including every single Republican we targeted with on-the-ground rallies and press conferences. We have attached the list of 53 Republicans who joined with the Democratic caucus in voting yes on the Labor-HHS on appropriations bill for FY 2008. Rep. Melissa Bean (IL) was the only Democrat who voted against the House Labor-HHS funding bill.

Thanks to AFSCME activists who sent a strong message in opposition to any weakening of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) requirement that hospitals annually test the fit of respirators that protect workers who may be exposed to tuberculosis (TB), Rep. Roger Wicker (R-MS) did not even offer his amendment to gut the annual fit testing provision. This is the first time since 2003 that the rider to block OSHA implementation of the rule was not inserted in the Labor-HHS funding bill as drafted. As the Labor-HHS funding bill moves forward in the Senate, AFSCME will remain vigilant to make sure this anti-worker rider is not added.

The House also rejected an attempt by private insurance companies to keep substantial subsidies for their private alternatives to Medicare. Under the disingenuous guise of protecting minority, low-income, rural or union groups, the amendment offered by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) was designed to stop any reductions in overpayments to private Medicare Advantage plans.

The majority of House members also rejected an amendment from Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) that would have resulted in more than a 20 percent cut in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) budget. The Democratic majority was able to fend off another harmful amendment, this one from Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), which would have prohibited the National Labor Relations Board from applying the National Labor Relations Act to unions that are established through card check recognition instead of secret ballot elections.

The Senate Labor-HHS funding bill has not been scheduled for a floor vote. President Bush has already threatened to veto the final bill because it will fund Labor-HHS programs at higher levels than his proposed budget, which would have cut many of these vital services. AFSCME activists are already working with coalition partners to discourage a veto from being made and to build the two-thirds vote support necessary to reject a presidential veto.
(Linda Bennett- [e-mail]; Fran Bernstein? [e-mail])

Public Safety Collective Bargaining Bill Passes the House of Representatives
After 12 years of fighting to pass legislation to provide collective bargaining rights to public safety officers in all states, AFSCME's corrections and law enforcement officers can now claim victory. On July 17, the House of Representatives voted to extend collective bargaining rights by a vote of 314 to 97. The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (H.R. 980) extends collective bargaining rights to public safety officers who do not currently have the right to engage in such activities. The bill has been at the top of AFSCME's legislative agenda. See video of the press conference heralding the passage of the bill. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i-AXmBzOk4
(Jayne Clancy- [e-mail])

AFSCME Scores Major Privatization Victory in House Committee
The House Agriculture Committee this week approved an AFSCME-backed measure that would block the Bush Administration from allowing states to privatize the eligibility determination process for the Food Stamp program. The provision, part of the Nutrition Title of the Farm Bill, also would cause Indiana to renegotiate or end a 10-year contract to privatize its Food Stamp, Medicaid and TANF programs, which the state signed with IBM last winter. As a result, the state would have to rehire state caseworkers who have been transferred to the private contractor.

During the committee's debate on the bill, a motion to strike the provision, by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), was defeated by a vote of 20 to 25 with all Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Tim Johnson (IL), voting against the amendment.

A second amendment offered by two new and politically vulnerable Indiana Democrats, Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Joe Donnelly, to give conditional authority for Indiana to continue with its contract, failed to generate support from either party and went down by voice vote.

Indiana is the latest state to attempt a massive transfer of the eligibility determination process for Food Stamps and Medicaid to private contractors. A previous effort in Texas was a disaster and was abandoned by the state this past spring after a little over a year.
(Nanine Meiklejohn- [e-mail])

Senate Panel Approves Children's Health Insurance Bill; Floor Debate Set for Next Week
On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee considered and approved bipartisan legislation to reauthorize or renew the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The bill is aimed at expanding health coverage for children by adding 3.2 million more low-income kids to the SCHIP and Medicaid rolls. The expansion in the number of children covered is estimated to cost an additional $35 billion over five years. The Senate bill finances this added cost with an increase in the tax on tobacco products.

The bill is a compromise worked out by Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT), John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). While the bill could have made further progress in reducing the number of uninsured children, it is remarkable that a bipartisan compromise could be reached at all given the President's repeated threat to veto legislation that would expand coverage.

The bill is slated for floor consideration next week. It is expected to be a contentious debate with allies of the President pushing for amendments that would reduce the number of children covered.

In the House, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee are finalizing their SCHIP bill and are expected to schedule simultaneous debates in each committee next week. The bill will call for covering more kids than the Senate bill, with projected spending of $50 billion over five years. In addition to an increase in the tobacco tax, the bill will include a reduction in subsidies to private insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans to seniors. These plans, which are a substitute for traditional, government-administered Medicare, are paid, on average, 12 percent more for each beneficiary than it costs to cover a beneficiary under traditional Medicare. Unless they are reduced, taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries will be subsidizing Medicare Advantage plans to the tune of $160 billion over the next 10 years.

However, reducing the subsidies to the private insurance companies is not without controversy. The industry has waged a strong campaign to keep the subsidies that fatten their profits. AFSCME opposes the subsidies to the private plans and supports reducing them in order to improve the Medicare program and expand SCHIP coverage.
(Barbara Coufal- [e-mail])

We Need Your Help!

Call your Representative today at 1-888-460-0813. Urge him/her to stop the subsidies to the Medicare Advantage private plans. Tell him/her that the savings should be used to improve the Medicare program and to expand children's health coverage.

Private Tax Collectors Given the Boot
The House Ways and Means Committee delivered a blow to a controversial three-year-old Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plan to outsource tax collection efforts. On a largely party-line vote of 23-18, the committee approved legislation sponsored by Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) that rescinds IRS authority allowing private debt collectors to go after delinquent taxpayers accounts. In passing the bill, committee members cited abusive tactics by private collectors and concerns that only public workers should be performing this sensitive, governmental work involving private tax records. A similar bill (S. 335) has been sponsored in the Senate by Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND), but no action has been scheduled.
(Ed Jayne- [e-mail])

House Committee Passes Bill Improving Mental Health Insurance Coverage
The full House Education and Labor Committee passed legislation (H.R. 1424) designed to end discrimination against people with mental health disorders by requiring employers and insurers to provide comparable coverage, or parity, for mental and physical illnesses. Under the bill, plans which cover mental health care would not be able to set higher co-payments or limits on the number of visits to doctors than are applicable to medical care for physical conditions. The bill, like the somewhat different Senate version (S. 558), does not require plans or insurers to offer mental health coverage. Current law is set to expire at the end of the year and only prohibits group health plans and group health insurance issuers from imposing annual and lifetime dollar limits on mental health coverage that are more restrictive than limits imposed on medical and surgical. The law allows state and local plans to opt out of these requirements. Current law allows plans to impose higher cost-sharing and more limits on visits or days of coverage. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Ways and Means Committee must also consider the bill. As the House proceeds to consider mental health parity legislation, AFSCME will advocate to close the opt-out loophole for state and local plans and to strengthen mental health parity.
(Linda Bennett- [e-mail])

Senate Clears Student Loan Bill After Rejecting Anti-Labor Amendment
A final vote on legislation to expand federal financial aid for college students was delayed by a series of politically motivated votes on unrelated issues. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered the so-called "Secret Ballot Protection Act." This legislation would deny workers the right to choose a union by majority card check recognition. The debate on the amendment lasted five minutes after which Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) raised a point of order, requiring 60 votes to overcome. The DeMint amendment failed 42-54. Among the 54 voting against the DeMint amendment were the following Republicans?Sens. Arlen Specter (PA), Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), George Voinovich (OH), Gordon Smith (OR) and Norm Coleman (MN).

The Higher Education bill (H.R. 2669) was finally approved by the Senate, 78-18. An amendment offered by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) that would have wiped out $2.4 billion in aid to student borrowers by restoring a portion of the reduced payments to the financial institutions that make the loans failed 36-61. Overall the bill reduced the lender subsidy cuts by $18 billion. The House-passed version of the bill makes slightly larger subsidy cuts. Additionally, Senators approved an amendment offered by Sen. Kennedy that would redirect additional savings to increase the funding for Pell grants for the neediest students from FY 2012 through FY 2017. The Higher Education bill now goes to a House-Senate conference.
(Marge Allen- [e-mail])

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