Early Thursday morning, President Obama signed into law a bill (HR 2775) to end a 16-day federal shutdown and raise the national debt ceiling, the Washington Post reports (Montgomery/Helderman,Washington Post, 10/17).
Details of the Legislation
The legislation — which was developed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — was approved in the Senate, 81-18, and in the House, 285-144 (Weisman/Parker, New York Times, 10/16).
The legislation immediately reopened the federal government by extending current funding levels — which include mandated cuts under sequestration — through Jan. 15 and raising the debt ceiling until Feb. 7 (Meyer, Modern Healthcare, 10/16).
Government Shutdown’s Effect on Federal Health IT Efforts
As a result of the government shutdown, which began Oct. 1, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT furloughed all but four of its 184 employees.
The agency halted its work on:
- Standards and interoperability;
- Privacy and security policy activities;
- Clinical quality measure development; and
- Maintenance of the Certified Health IT Product List
The ONC employees made up just a fraction of HHS’ total furloughs. The government shutdown forced HHS to furlough 52% of its workforce, or about 40,512 employees (iHealthBeat, 10/1).
Meaningful use incentive payments continued throughout the shutdown.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health record systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
In a tweet, former National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari noted that meaningful use incentive payments “do not come from annual appropriations” and that CMS “continue[s] to receive attestations.”
However, the shutdown led to the postponement of several federal health IT hearings, including a House committee hearing on FDA’s health IT regulatory strategy (iHealthBeat, 10/4).
Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs furloughed 2,754 IT workers and stopped all software development, including work on the $491 million paperless Veterans Benefits Management System. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has said the system is necessary to eliminate a backlog of veterans’ disability claims by 2015 (iHealthBeat, 10/9).
