NU Online News Service, Feb. 23, 10:23 a.m. EST

Funding for implementing the medical loss ratio provision of the health care reform law would be eliminated for the remainder of this fiscal year under the budget passed by the House last Saturday.

Congress is off this week, and the current appropriations bill extending operations of the government under the 2010 budget runs out March 4.

Moreover, various other amendments to the appropriations bill would bar the Obama administration from implementing any other portion of the health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

House Democrats also said the proposed budget would cut the Social Security Administration's budget by 9.3 percent for the rest of the fiscal year, likely resulting in major furloughs. Democrats said the cuts could result in furloughs of up to four weeks for some agency employees.

Specifically, an amendment offered by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, strips funding for any provision of the health care law.

Another amendment by Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., prohibits federal funding from being used to pay any employee, officer or contractor to implement the provisions of President Obama's health care law.

The National Association of Health Underwriters lauded an amendment by Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a physician, which prohibits the use of federal funds from being used to carry out the medical loss ratio restrictions in the president's health care law.

Janet Trautwein, executive vice president and CEO of NAHU, said the MLR provision is having "a devastating financial impact on the country's approximately half-million licensed professional health insurance agents and brokers and their employees and clients—the millions of employers and individual Americans who purchase private health insurance coverage each year."

She said agents are seeing as much as a 50 percent reduction in business income. "This means that fewer agents and brokers will be able to afford to stay in business, and many will have to begin reducing services to their clients and cutting jobs at the very time our economy is the weakest and health insurance purchasers need help the most."

Charles Symington, senior vice president of government affairs for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, said, "We appreciate the House's attempts to find a solution to an issue in the health care reform law that is already costing jobs in America, and we look forward to working with the House and Senate on addressing this serious issue."

In a statement, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tapped his chief of staff, David Krone, to begin discussions with the office of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on a long-term funding bill.

Sen. Reid also said he will introduce this week a measure that would extend the current operations of the government for 30 days beyond March 4. He said the measure would reflect $41 billion in cuts from President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget request, noting that such a funding level was agreed to by Senate Republicans and Democrats in December but never passed.

Special Reports /

House Republicans Look To Kill Funding For Health Care MLR Provision

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