Congress Sends Budget Deal to POTUS with UBIT Repeal, NEMT Protections Included

On Thursday the Senate passed the legislation the House sent it on Tuesday, meaning legislation funding the government for FY20 is now just awaiting the President’s signature to become law and avoid a federal shutdown. As we shared last week, these bills would:

• Permanently repeal the 2.3 percent medical device tax.
• Augment Medicaid funding for U.S. territories for two years.
• Prevent the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from blocking states from reimbursing from non-emergency medical transport, which CMS had been considering doing. ANCOR has participated in coalition efforts on this issue.
• Repeal the 21 percent unearned business income tax (UBIT). ANCOR has been advocating for repeal since 2018, when the law took effect, as part of the UBIT Coalition.
• Temporarily renew the Money Follows the Person (MFP) program until May 22, 2020. The Senate is expected to discuss a permanent renewal of MFP in May 2020, when the proposal can be tied with drug pricing legislation. ANCOR has been a long-time advocate for a permanent renewal of the program.

Programming note: There will not be an issue of ANCOR Capitol Correspondence on December 31. We will resume publication on January 6.