Mary Agnes Carey, associate editor of CQ HealthBeat, discusses a House panel's approval of genetic anti-discrimination legislation; a Senate committee's approval of the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution; and House and Senate committees' approval of a cervical and breast cancer screening bill in this week's "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork and CQ." A second House subcommittee has approved genetic anti-discrimination legislation, and Carey says that the panel adopted two amendments, one that excludes long-term care from the bill and another that prohibits "genetic information from being treated as a pre-existing condition." Carey also discusses the FY 2008 budget resolution, which was passed by the Senate Budget Committee. The measure includes $18 billion more for domestic discretionary spending than President Bush proposed, as well as $3.5 billion more for veteran health care. It also includes $50 billion in reserve funds for SCHIP, Carey says. A House panel approved a supplemental spending bill last week, which included $750 million for SCHIP funding shortfalls in some states and $2.8 billion for defense health care. In addition, Carey discusses House and Senate committees' approval of legislation that would reauthorize the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. The program received $202 million in FY 2007 and would receive $225 million in FY 2008 under the bill. The only amendment was to clarify language that will allow some states to spend more money on outreach to low-income women who might not know they are eligible for the program, Carey says. Finally, Carey talks about three measures approved by the House Veterans Affairs Committee that would expand health care and disability benefits for veterans (Carey, "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork and CQ," 3/19).

The complete audio version of "Health on the Hill," transcript and resources for further research are available online at kaisernetwork.

"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.