House Panel OKs Bipartisan Preventive Health Measures Analysis
Lawmakers renamed H.R. 766 in honor of Rep. Michael Burgess, who is retiring.
The House Budget Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to support a preventive health measures analysis bill — and tried to show that Republicans and Democrats can still work together.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, introduced the bill, H.R. 766, together with Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. DeGette has been working on the bill for 15 years, and Burgess has been working on it for more than a decade.
The committee voted to change the name of the bill from the Preventive Health Savings Act to the Dr. Michael C. Burgess Preventive Health Savings Act to honor Burgess, who has decided against running for reelection for a 12th term in office.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the House Budget chairman, pointed out that the level of support for the bill was unusual.
“It’s been a decade since this committee has passed bipartisan legislation, or any legislation outside of a partisan budget resolution,” Arrington said during the bill “markup” meeting, which was streamed live on the internet.
The committee’s recording of the meeting is available online.
The legislation: The Burgess-DeGette bill, H.R. 766, would let the heads of some House and Senate committees ask the Congressional Budget Office for special analyses of preventive health proposals.
The CBO helps members of Congress see how their proposals might affect federal revenue and federal spending.
Normally, CBO analysts can look only at how a proposal might affect the federal budget over a 10-year period. Under H.R. 766 rules, the CBO would look at how a preventive health measure might affect the federal budget 11 to 30 years after passage, as well as during the first 10 years after passage.
If the CBO director found that the proposal could lead to substantial long-term savings, the director would have to include a description of the savings in any budget impact analyses.
The CBO could also create budget projections for the proposal that would extend past the usual 10-year “budget scoring” limit.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. Credit: Burgess