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ASRM BULLETIN
Volume 9, Number 24
November 16, 2007
House Override of Labor Appropriations Veto Falls Two Votes Short; More to Come after Thanksgiving Recess
Thank you for your efforts to encourage Congressional support for the Labor-HHS veto override. Unfortunately, the override failed last night on a 277-141 vote. All 141 votes to sustain the veto came from Republicans. Fifteen members- seven Democrats and eight Republicans- did not participate in the vote.
More action on Appropriations will take place when Congress returns after a two-week recess. We will keep you informed.
After the Thanksgiving recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) plans to send the president an omnibus appropriations bill splitting the difference between the President’s request and Congress’ budget and resulting in a $3 billion reduction in funding for Labor-HHS-Education.
Such a compromise would have severe repercussions as outlined by Representative David Obey (D-Wis), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor-Health-Education Subcommittee, speaking to the House during the debate preceding the override vote.
These are several of the points Mr. Obey made:
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"For medical research into diseases like cancer, Parkinson's and diabetes at the National Institutes of Health, meeting the President halfway would put us $700 million below the bill we are considering today. That means about 700 fewer grants for research to treat and cure so many deadly diseases.
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"For healthcare access - to provide 1.2 million more Americans with access to community health centers this bill is $200 million above the President's request. Under a split the difference scenario, access for 600,000 people will evaporate.
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"Likewise this bill provides $95 million so that 200,000 people who can't get insurance because they are medically high risk will have health insurance. That insurance goes away for 100,000 people if we split the difference.”
The ASRM Bulletin is published by ASRM's Office of Public Affairs to inform Society members of important recent developments. Republication or any other use of the contents of the Bulletin without permission is prohibited. To request permission to quote or excerpt material from the Bulletin, contact Sean Tipton at
stipton@asrm-dc.org.
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