|
112th Congress Overview
Last November's election results bring many new faces to Capitol Hill, as one-fifth of the new 112th Congress will be freshmen. Your DGR staff has already initiated a year-long effort to educate the new Members of Congress about APA priorities for our members and your patients. The sheer number of freshmen, together with the change in party control of the House creates opportunities to make new friends and find new champions on the Hill.
There will also be significant challenges. On January 4, the House approved the rule setting terms for the upcoming floor debate on legislation to repeal last year's health reform law. Originally scheduled for January 12, the debate has been postponed in the wake of the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and nineteen others in Tucson. Given the retention of a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, outright repeal is unlikely, all the more so since President Obama has already stated he will veto any repeal bill that makes it to his desk.
House lawmakers are therefore poised to try to scale back the scope of the law by targeting unpopular provisions such as the individual/employer coverage mandate, reducing or eliminating funding to carry out the law, or using spending bills to block regulations implementing key provisions of the law to which they object. Assuming ongoing federal lawsuits by various state attorneys general seeking to dismantle the law are unresolved, these and similar congressional activities can be expected to carry on through much of the two-year Congress in the run up to the presidential election in 2012.
Even while Congress debates whether to repeal or scale back health reform, we will have to devote a lot of attention to the simultaneous issuance of analyzing and commenting on myriad federal regulations to implement the reform law, and in providing information to APA members about how the actual implementation will (or won't) impact your practice. We're certainly living in interesting times, and look forward to your active involvement as we navigate these tumultuous political currents. | 
