Washington Update
• Bill Archer (R-TX), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, last week called for the federal government to begin offering tax breaks to make long term care more affordable. Archer’s proposal, which will be included in a tax relief bill House Republicans are expected to begin moving this week, eventually would allow people who buy long term care insurance to deduct the entire expense of those premiums from their taxes. It would also give tax breaks for Americans who care for elderly people in their homes.
• Home health advocates told a Senate hearing on home care recently that more patients are losing services and are forced to seek more expensive treatment, while others are falling through the cracks, reported the Kansas City Star. "It is safe to assume we really don’t know where these patients are or how their health status has been affected," Barbara Markham Smith, a health policy analyst, told the Senate.
• U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) is supporting the Medicare Home Health Equity Act that would restore Medicare spending to home health patients. The act would eliminate a 15% cut in home healthcare reimbursements set to begin Oct. 1, 2000. It would also increase the cost limit per home health patient. The system now "unfairly penalizes historically cost-efficient home health agencies that have been most prudent with their Medicare resources," Enzi said.
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