The new federal budget deal could leave most Affordable Care Act implementation funding intact but lead to some reductions.
The negotiators who hammered out the “final continuing resolution” for fiscal year 2011 are hoping it will win enough votes from Republicans in the House to pass a measure that would provide funding to keep the federal government operating for the rest of the fiscal year.
Republican and Democratic negotiators have tried to show Republicans who are worried about trillion-dollar federal budget deficits that they are serious about controlling spending by making about $40 billion in cuts.
Federal fiscal year 2011 started Oct. 1, 2010.
The passage of the proposed continuing resolution “in the House and Senate will mark the end of an arduous and long-overdue budget process initiated by the failure of the previous Democrat-controlled Congress to pass a budget or enact a single one of the 12 annual appropriations bills last year,” Appropriations Committee officials say.
Although the size of the proposed spending reduction is small in comparison with the budget deficit, it “is nearly 5 times larger than any other cut in history, and is the result of this new Republican majority’s commitment to bring about real change in the way Washington spends the people’s money,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky, says in a statement about the deal
The House recently approved a long series of bills that would cut funding for implementing parts of the Affordable Care Act – the legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act.
The House also has passed H.R. 1, a general Affordable Care Act de-funding bill.