A "HealthTweep" Pulse Check

We’re entering the fast track phase for the legislative process to meet the deadline presented by the President to the Congress. Courtesy of Trust for America’s Health, is a summary of the probable House and Senate timelines to deliver on the requested legislation.

This includes recaps from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and initial negotiations of the committees with jurisdiction on the House side: Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and Education and Labor.  

Please note that timelines and language are always subject to change. 

House Timeline

End of Week of June 15 – Draft bill language is released.  This bill will be referred to three committees- Energy and Commerce; Education and Labor; and Ways and Means

Week of June 22 – Hearings in the 3 committees (possibly at subcommittee level)

Week of June 29 – Recess; negotiations continue

Week of July 6 – Full committee hearings

Week of July 13 – Full committee markups

Week of July 27 – House floor consideration

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Timeline

See summary of “Affordable Health Choices Act“.

Week of June 8th – Committee walkthroughs and hearing/roundtable(s)

Week of June 15th – Series of markups of different components of legislation

Week of June 22nd – Additional markups

Senate Finance Timeline

Week of June 8th – Ongoing bi-partisan member meetings.

Week of June 15th – Committee mark released

Week of June 22nd – Committee markup over several days

Senate Floor Timeline

Week of July 20th – Beginning of consideration on Senate floor

Week of July 27th – Completion of Senate consideration

Draft “tri-committee” (E&C, W&M, Education and Labor) public health provisions

Prevention and wellness

Expands community health centers 

Waives cost-sharing for preventive services in benefits packages 

Creates community-based programs to deliver prevention and wellness services 

Targets community-based programs and new data collection efforts to better

identify and address health disparities 

Strengthens state, local, tribal and territorial public health departments and programs 

Workforce 

Boosts training of primary care doctors and expands pipeline of individuals going into health professions, including primary care, nursing and public health 

Supports workforce diversity efforts 

Expands scholarships and loans for individuals in needed professions and shortage areas 

Draft House Energy and Commerce public health provisions

Workforce - Expand and fully fund current workforce programs including the doctor, nurse and other provider programs.  This will include loans and graduate medical education.

Community health centers - The bill will expand community health centers.

Data collection - The bill will create a new health surveillance office that will identify gaps in federal data collection activities and eventually issue health data on a periodic basis.

Prevention and Wellness Fund – This will build on the prevention and wellness money from the stimulus package.  It has four sections:

HHS will develop a national prevention and wellness strategic plan with specific goals on public health issues such as obesity. 

There will be new research authority to identify and develop the best strategies for addressing the goals. 

The U.S. Preventative Task Force and the Taskforce on Community Prevention will be expanded. 

They develop guideline on specific services such as screenings, and community wide actions. 

A new grant program to implement the taskforce recommendations and new funds to help state health departments.