DeLauro Statement on Department of Health and Human Services 2015 Budget Request

March 13, 2014
Press Release
DeLauro Statement on Department of Health and Human Services 2015 Budget Request

“Welcome Madam Secretary. Thank you for joining us. And thank you for all you have done, and are continuing to do, to implement the Affordable Care Act, a transformative law for American families. Before we begin, I want to make three important points to help guide our conversation this morning, and to set the record straight.

“First, and despite what we are likely to hear, Congress has spent the last few years making deep and irresponsible cuts to non-defense discretionary spending. If history is any guide, the commentary will be to suggest that spending on these vital priorities has grown – or even exploded – in the past decade. This is simply not true. Let us look at the evidence. A common means of comparing budget levels over time is to measure them relative to the size of the economy, as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product.

“Using that measure, per-capita, inflation-adjusted spending on programs funded in the Labor-HHS bill over the past decade has been cut by nearly 15 percent, from 1.21 percent of GDP ten years ago to just .95 percent in the 2014 budget we enacted two months ago. NIH has been cut by $1.079 billion. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) by $1.418 billion. CDC has been cut by $723 million. Job training programs at the Department of Labor have been cut by $696 million. Title I by $107 million. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding by $32 million. The list goes on and on.

“Some of my colleagues may applaud these deep cuts as a necessary austerity. But, in real-life terms, what we are really talking about here is less money for education, less money for scientific research, and less money for public health investments, among other critical priorities across the Labor-HHS bill. We are not doing more with less. We are doing less with less.

“We are still working to recover from the worst recession in generations, and yet we are shortchanging the critical investments in our future that actually grow the economy and save money in the long run. The recent budget agreement was a small step in the right direction, in that it reversed some – and only some – of the deep and indiscriminate sequester cuts. But we still have a long way to go.

“For example, the 2014 budget restored only 58 percent of sequestration for NIH –a critical driver of jobs and health. The CDC remains $100 million below its funding level prior to the onset of sequestration, despite the continued emergence of public health threats. These are just two examples of where we fell short. There are many more.

“Second, I want to highlight the success of the Affordable Care Act. We all know there were serious problems with the initial rollout of healthcare.gov last fall – and I expect we will spend time this morning discussing what went wrong there. But I also want to make sure we acknowledge and applaud the many policy successes we have seen so far.   Since the healthcare.gov website fixes went live, enrollment numbers have shot up nationally. Over 13 million Americans have signed up for affordable insurance coverage, many for the first time.

In my state, Access Health CT, the state-run exchange, had a goal of enrolling 100,000 people by March 1st. It has enrolled close to 160,000 Connecticut citizens. It is coming in on time and under budget.

“A new Gallup poll shows that, since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the uninsured rate in America is dropping among every single demographic group, especially lower-income Americans. Health care spending growth is the lowest on record. In fact, health care spending growth rates over the past few years are less than one-third of the long-term historical average going back more than 50 years. Due to this slower growth in health care spending, CBO projects that the Affordable Care Act will reduce federal deficits by $100 billion in the next ten years and by an average of $83 billion per year in the subsequent decade. I repeat: CBO says the Affordable Care Act will reduce federal deficits by $100 billion in the next ten years and an average of $83 billion per year in the subsequent decade.

“So, notwithstanding the rhetoric, evidence so far suggests that the Affordable Care Act is working. It is providing more Americans access to affordable insurance and a higher quality of care, while working to slow the growth of health care spending and health care inflation.

Let us not lose the forest for the trees. Americans do not want us to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They want us to fix what it not working as well as intended and move forward.

“Third, I want to turn to the main question before us today: the Health and Human Services budget request for fiscal year 2015. I was pleased to see modest increases for critical priorities like biomedical research and early childhood programs in the president’s request. At the same time, other parts of this request give me serious pause. For example, this proposal would further reduce the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, by another $625 million. Right now, LIHEAP’s current funding is still below the pre-sequester level. I am also troubled by the proposal to cut Community Services programs by nearly one-half. I hope we can talk about these priorities.

“Finally, I have a question for my fellow members of the subcommittee, particularly those who are concerned about waste, fraud, and abuse in health care. Why did we choose not to fully fund the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control program in the 2014 budget? This program acts as a deterrent against fraud and overpayments in our Medicare system. It saves billions of dollars of taxpayer money and ensures that our seniors receive the benefits they have earned. And yet the Majority left an additional $329 million for this program on the table, even though it would not have cost this subcommittee a penny from other programs due to the cap adjustment for program integrity initiatives. These additional funds would have saved taxpayers approximately $2.5 billion if we had included them in the recent budget. If we are truly concerned about stopping health care fraud and reducing the deficit, we need to fund the programs that work to do so. I hope my colleagues will commit to fully fund this program for 2015.

“So we have much to talk about. With that in mind, Secretary Sebelius, thank you again for coming today, and for all of your hard work on behalf of our families. I know you have a tough job, and I look forward to hearing your testimony and the discussion. Thank you.”

113th Congress