House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp today told U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the Obama administration’s 2012 budget proposal “is a mess.”
Federal fiscal year 2012 will start Oct. 1.
Sebelius was the only witness at the Ways and Means HHS budget hearing, and she noted that the proposed HHS discretionary budget is slightly below the 2010 level.
“When we found waste, we cut it,” Sebelius testified. “When we found duplication, we eliminated it.”
Camp, R-Mich., acknowledged that Sebelius and other Obama administration officials have shown willingness to try to fix apparent problems with the Affordable Care Act – the legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Sebelius, for example, has conceded that the unmodified version of the voluntary worksite long term care program created by the Affordable Care Act appears to be unsustainable, Camp said.