The House of Representatives voted 217-213 to pass a continuing resolution that funds the government until Sept. 30, 2025, and extends expiring Medicare telehealth flexibilities until the same date.
The House voted mostly along party lines save for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, who said before the vote that he would oppose due to his standing opposition to continuing resolutions. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, was the lone Democrat vote in favor, and said in a statement that he preferred an imperfect continuing resolution to a shutdown.
The funding patch would avert a government shutdown on Friday, March 14, though the Senate still needs to debate and find 60 votes before the federal government is in the clear.
The continuing resolution was drafted by Republican appropriators and has the support of President Donald Trump.
The funding patch contains limited healthcare extenders and funding. It extends telehealth flexibilities for Medicare beneficiaries and providers, which will allow telehealth visits to be conducted from an expanded list of locations, including the patient's home, and will allow an expanded list of provider types to furnish telehealth.
Republicans' continuing resolution extends funding for community health centers, teaching health centers that operate graduate medical education programs and the acute hospital at home program.
Also for hospitals, it again delays Medicaid disproportionate share hospital reductions while extending increased inpatient hospital payment adjustment for certain low-volume hospitals, the Medicare-dependent hospital program and a 1.0 floor on the work Geographic Practice Cost Index.
“Actions speak loudly, and with this short-term government funding legislation, Congress is acting to protect Americans’ healthcare," Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH), which represents for-profit hospitals and health systems, said ahead of Tuesday's vote. "We support Congress' efforts—the postponement of harmful Medicaid cuts and the continued support for rural Americans’ healthcare access and seniors’ telehealth services are critical to assuring patients 24/7 care."
It does not include a rollback of the 2.83% Medicare physician pay cut that went into effect Jan. 1, a major pain point for physician lobbying groups like the American Medical Association. Republican congressional leaders promised Rep. Greg Murphy, M.D., R-North Carolina, they would include a doc pay fix in its budget reconciliation later this year, the lawmaker said in a post on X, formerly called Twitter.
Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, called the bill "an attack on healthcare" because it did not include language to protect Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
"I want to stress that this partisan Republican bill cuts American healthcare," Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, said during the floor debate. "This bill slashes funding for our community health centers, which provide care for millions of people, as well as our nation's teaching hospitals, which train the next generation of doctors. It fails to reverse the Medicare physician pay cut, which endangers access for seniors, especially those in rural and underserved communities. It also does nothing to stop Republicans planned catastrophic cuts to Medicaid."
Pallone and other Democrats made reference to the $880 billion in cuts that the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, has to identify during budget reconciliation later this year. The threat of drastic cuts to Medicaid, which has raised considerable alarm among stakeholders, is not at issue in the FY2025 continuing resolution.
Republicans retorted that the continuing resolution does nothing to interrupt federal healthcare programs.
“I know members have heard some fear mongering about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, and chairman of the House appropriations committee, said on the House floor. "This bill makes no changes to any of these programs, leaving them intact as is and with the funding they need to operate through the end of the fiscal year.”
Still left unaddressed is the expiration of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act marketplace, which are set to run dry at the end of the year and strongly favored by various segments of the healthcare industry. The FAH's Kahn said this will be a focus for his group's work with Congress later in the year.
“For those who supported the CR in December, you should have no qualms about voting for the same way on today's bill," Cole said. "There are no policy differences, no poison pills and no reason to vote against keeping the government open and operating a year long.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, and ranking member of the House appropriations committee, equated the continuing resolution to a longer leash for Trump and Elon Musk. DeLauro and other Democrats voiced support for a shorter, one-month continuing resolution as their preferred alternative to the Republican package.
"It is not a simple stopgap that keeps the lights on and the doors open," DeLauro said on the floor. "This is Republican leadership handing over the keys of the government and a blank check to Elon Musk and to President Trump. As the White House has said, this bill creates more flexibility for this administration to continue to undermine the Constitution and the countless spending laws [Congress has already passed] by stealing promised investments from American families, children and businesses.”