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Summary:
On August 1, 2007, the House passed H.R. 3162, the Children's Health and Medicare Protection (CHAMP) Act of 2007. The bill would reauthorize and increase funding levels and state grant distributions for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and make changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The major SCHIP provisions would provide authorized program appropriations in perpetuity and would make changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Other major SCHIP provisions would provide more options and incentives to states to increase the number of children covered by SCHIP and Medicaid, modify the citizenship verification process, and change minimum benefit requirements. The bill's Medicare provisions would implement a 0.5% increase in Medicare physician fees for 2008 and 2009 while creating six categories of physician services for which annual updates would be considered separately, establish bonus payments for physicians practicing in counties with low Medicare per capita expenditures, require the Secretary to implement a resource use feedback program for physicians to identify efficient providers, expand a medical home demonstration project, and require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to modify physician payment localities, beginning with California. Other Medicare provisions would reduce payments to Medicare Advantage plans, eliminate Medicare cost-sharing for certain preventive benefits, eliminate the market basket update for FY2008 for Medicare payments for skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and long-term care hospitals and reduce the annual update for certain hospitals. It would also establish a bundled payment system for Medicare renal dialysis services and would make a number of changes to the Low-Income Subsidy Program for Medicare Part D, including eliminating cost-sharing requirements for certain full benefit dual eligibles receiving Medicaid-covered long-term care services. Medicaid provisions in the bill would make changes to rebate payments for certain drugs, prohibit the implementation of the new health opportunity account demonstration authorized under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA, P.L. 109171), and make other changes. Additional miscellaneous provisions would establish a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), -- funded by public contributions from the Medicare Part A, B, and D trust fund accounts and fees imposed on private health insurance plans, require CMS to develop a plan for the implementation of health information technology under Medicare, and establish a national entity to coordinate development of health care measures. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that H.R. 3162 would result in a net increase of $25.6 billion in Federal spending between 2008 and 2012. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates a revenue offset of $26.9 billion for the same period from increases in the excise tax rate on tobacco-related products, a modification to the definition of roll-your-own tobacco, with an extension of an exemption from fuel excise tax for use in ambulances. This report provides short descriptions of the major provisions contained in H.R. 3162.
Related Bills:
H.R.3162
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