NAEYC Alert

October 31, 2005

House Lowers Amount It Would Spend on Child Care Over 5 Years
Senate Reconciliation Cuts Moving Forward This Week

ACTION AND MESSAGE:

Call Your Representatives and Senators and tell them to oppose reconciliation cuts to programs that help children and families in your communities with health, nutrition, child care, and family economic stability. The Capitol Switchboard is 202-225-3121 To find them by using your zip code, go to http://capwiz.com/naeyc/home/.

*OPPOSE reconciliation bills that cut programs that support children’s health care, child care, and basic food needs. Oppose cuts to programs or more onerous requirements on low income families who need assistance to keep their families healthy and on a path to economic stability and independence. Making it harder for working families to pay for child care, feed their children, and keep them healthy are the wrong choices.

*While the House bill is much more severe in cuts to programs that serve children, passage of the Senate bill will mean moving reconciliation forward instead of starting over with the budget that makes the right choices for children and families.

HOUSE CUTS ORIGINAL CHILD CARE FUNDING PROPOSAL IN HALF AND ADDS WORK BURDEN TO TANF FAMILIES AND STATES.

CHILD CARE
The House Ways & Means Committee marked up its reconciliation portion and reduced the original House leadership proposal in the CCDBG/TANF reauthorization from $1 billion increase in mandatory funds over 5 years to only $500 million increase. The bill also increases TANF work requirements, from 30 to 40 hours a week, without the child care funding increases to help those families with the new work requirements. If enacted, by year 2010, roughly 270,000 fewer eligible children in working, low-income families who are not on TANF would receive child care subsidies.

CHILD SUPPORT
The Ways & Means Committee also made cut to child support enforcement by $5 billion over 5 years. States would have to put in funds to fill the gap, or enforcement would go down and children would not receive the child support that they are owed.

MEDICAID
The House Energy and Commerce Committee cut $11 billion in its spending reconciliation bill, of which $9.5 billion would come from Medicaid. Premiums and copayments could be applied to children under age six with income above 133 percent of the poverty line and children age 6 to 18 with income just above the poverty line. States would be permitted to charge children with family incomes below the poverty line for drugs not on a “preferred” list and children with family incomes of 133% of poverty could face copayments even for preferred drugs. Children with family incomes just above the poverty line would lose the guarantee of Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT). States would be allowed to terminate or severely limit coverage for a wide range of services and medical devices, such as mental health services, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and other therapeutic services.

FOOD STAMPS
The House Agriculture Committee cut Food Stamps by $844 million over 5 years. If enacted, this means 225,000 individuals in working families would lose Food Stamps and 70,000 legal immigrants who have been in the country 5 to 7 years would also lose their Food Stamp benefit.

SENATE RECONCILIATION
The Senate intends to take up its reconciliation bill next week. The Senate reconciliation bill is not as severe as the House bill because it do not include any cuts to the food stamp, child support enforcement, child care, TANF, or foster care programs but it does cut $10 billion from Medicaid and Medicare (although not by raising Medicaid copayments).