Comparison of Assistance Under SOS Act vs. Bush Administration Block Grant

Comparison of Assistance Under SOS Act vs. Bush Administration Block Grant
	Strengthening Our States Introduced by Representative Dingell and Senator Bingaman	Bush Administration Block Grant
*Assistance with the cost of low-income Medicare beneficiaries . . .*	YES. Provides 100% federal funding for premiums, cost-sharing, and deductibles for low-income Medicare beneficiaries.	NO. Provides no federal help; shifts the bulk of the burden to states by capping federal funding on coverage for elderly and disabled.
*Direct immediate fiscal relief to prevent pending reductions in Medicaid coverage . . .*	YES. Provides $30 billion of immediate fiscal relief for states, and General Accounting Office (GAO) study on making Medicaid funding more responsive in recessions.	NO. Funding must be paid back and amount is inadequate; the $3.2 billion in the first year of the Bush proposal is only 4% of projected state shortfalls. States could not get any assistance until after start of state fiscal year and must accept block grant of the bulk of the program.
*Direct fiscal relief to prevent pending reductions in CHIP*	YES. Restores all of the unspent CHIP money that was returned to the Treasury.	NO. Restores less than half of the $2.5 billion in unspent CHIP funds.
*Other fiscal relief . . .*	YES. Enhanced federal responsibility for low-income Medicare beneficiaries and individuals with disabilities; new funding for legal immigrants, other adults, and parents to provide additional financial strength to state-run systems. Restores money cut from disproportionate share hospital (DSH) program.	NO.
*Strengthening of state-federal partnership to move individuals with disabilities into community-living settings . . .*	YES. Permanently increases federal funding for community care for elderly and disabled individuals; makes it easier for states to cover individuals through community care waivers by including savings from other federal programs in cost calculations; creates a new optional Medicaid benefit for coverage of community based attendant and support services with enhanced funding for states that choose to offer this coverage.	NO. Shifts responsibility to states by capping federal funding for the bulk of the elderly and individuals with disabilities.
*New program flexibility . . .*	YES. Simplifies program administration by making it easier for states to cover all state residents up to a certain level of poverty; lengthens home and community-based care waivers to five years and gives flexibility to count savings to other federal programs in these waivers.	Unspecified.
*Incentives to prevent coverage reductions in state "general assistance" health programs for adults . . .*	YES. Provides states a new option to cover uninsured individuals now in state-funded programs under Medicaid -- without having to reduce current coverage for others. Also provides fiscal relief to those states currently paying for programs for adults.	NO. States must cut coverage to other families if they wish to cover adults in Medicaid.
*Incentives to preserve health insurance coverage and reduce the number of uninsured . . .*	YES. Preserves the state-federal partnership guaranteeing federal assistance for every current and future uninsured person the state covers.	NO. Eliminates the state-federal financing partnership that has provided incentive to expand coverage to the uninsured for the past 40 years. States will have to fully finance new coverage expansions with state-only money and will no longer be guaranteed any federal assistance for coverage expansions.