President Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget request, released to Congress Monday, totals more than $3 trillion, with proposed cuts of $200 billion to Medicare and Medicaid and no plans to address the 10.6 percent cut doctors face in July.
At a press conference, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said the complex budget has been crafted responsibly in a challenging time. If passed, he said, it would protect and strengthen the country and create a healthier, safer and more compassionate America.
Others weren't so complimentary.
Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said the president's proposal, if passed by Congress, would have a disastrous impact on U.S. healthcare.
"America's hospitals strongly oppose this budget's outrageous cuts to Medicare and Medicaid," he said. "In the real world, these enormous budget numbers come with enormous consequences, making hospitals' job of caring for patients even more difficult."
Edward Langston, MD, board chairman of the American Medical Association, said a failure to address payment cuts to doctors will result in decreased access to care for seniors, as doctors may be forced to end participation in the Medicare program.
Democratic lawmakers made it clear they will not support Bush's proposal.
Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, called the budget "dead on arrival."
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) said the proposal contained "deep, dangerous cuts to Medicare" that he would not support.
"We should be working together to strengthen, not undermine, Medicare for future generations," he said. "With more than 46 million uninsured Americans, Congress and the administration must work to expand, not limit, American families' access to reliable, affordable healthcare, and this budget would only exacerbate this growing problem. "
Meanwhile, Republican leaders questioned proposed increases of $19.7 billion (from $4.2 billion) over five years to for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said a re-authorization of SCHIP failed in part last year because the administration insisted the program didn't require as much money as some members of Congress said it would.
"A lot of members of Congress relied on the administration's estimates," Grassley said. "It turns out that the estimates apparently weren't so reliable."
"I don't know how or why they revised their estimate by more than 400 percent in a few months," he added. "It's good they got religion, but I wish they'd seen the light last fall. We might have avoided a lot of time and trouble and gotten far better policies instilled in the program."