Breaking News: House to vote on dangerous bill

More information about HB 960 as amended:

Proposed Amendments Would Allow DPW to

Gut Cash and Medicaid Programs

Without Legislative or Public Input

State Representatives should vote NO on HB 960 as amended by the Senate.

· HB 960, as amended, would give the Department of Public Welfare virtually unchecked authority to cut cash assistance, Medicaid, and welfare-to-work supports.

· The bill abdicates the General Assembly’s responsibility to make carefully reasoned choices affecting Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens, by allowing DPW to dramatically increase child care co-payments, cut Medicaid benefits, and reduce eligibility for benefits – with no provision for legislative oversight nor any opportunity for public comment.

Specifically, HB 960, as amended, gives DPW the following authority to make cuts:

Section 403.1

Suspends laws setting up rulemaking processes that give the General Assembly and the public opportunity to comment on proposed rules. Instead, DPW would have unilateral authority to:

• Reduce cash assistance grant amounts (which are already at around 25% of the federal poverty level and have not been increased since 1990);
• Increase co-pays for visits to medical providers without limit;
• Reduce covered medical services under the Medicaid program without limit; and
• Eliminate whole categories of eligibility for Medicaid, adding tens of thousands to the rolls of the uninsured.

Section 405.1A

Allows DPW to eliminate supportive services that help low-income families move from welfare to work, such as vendor payments for books and supplies, transportation to welfare-to-work programs, and more. HB 960 thus sweeps away last year’s regulatory reforms developed with input from the General Assembly and public.

Section 408.3

Allows DPW to increase co-payments for child care subsidies to unaffordable levels without public input and formal regulatory review.

Section 432.24

Imposes costly and unnecessary new drug testing requirements for food stamp and cash assistance recipients who have had a felony drug conviction within the past five years.