Published in Pawtucket Times on March 19, 2001

The operative word in national legislative circles these days in bipartisianship.

Both sides of the political aisle working together will have to be part of the picture if the long-term care field is going to see any significant legislative changes, policy sources indicate.

Why is that so? In the Senate, “there’s a 50-50 split between the two major political parties,” notes Bill Benson, President of Benson Consulting Group, a Maryland-based organization. What’s more, the division “has resulted in an unprecedented agreement between Senate Democrats and Republicans to share power,” according to Benson, a former top official with the U.S. Administration on Aging.

Democrats and Republicans alike have been following the failing health of Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, 98, of South Carolina.

If Thurmond retires or dies before the end of this term in 2002, it’s likely that his state’s Democratic governor would appoint a Democrat, a move that would shift the majority in the Senate to the Democratic Party.

Yet, Benson says that any legislative proposal would still need bipartisan support to get out of the Senate. “To get a Republican proposal enacted, you will either have to get lots of Democrats to cross party lines, or bring in Vice President Cheney to be a tie breaker,” he noted.

Meanwhile, in the House, the Republican majority holds but a razor thin margin.

“Like in the Senate, if both parties don’t work together in the House, you’re looking at legislative gridlock,” he says.

Benson notes that the Bush Administration is also moving to stall the lengthy regulatory and administrative actions taken by Clinton toward the end of his administration.

One such item that is temporarily halted is Clinton’s guidelines for managed care organizations that serve Medicare beneficiaries.

President Bush campaigned on Medicare reform and wants to bring his proposal to Congress.

His proposal provides a private sector alternative to traditional fee-for-service Medicare by offering block grants to states to help seniors pay for their pharmaceuticals.

This approach may be derailed by the Democratic Party, which added to its seats in Congress during the recent election, Benson explains.

He notes that Senator Charles Grassley (IA), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has declared that he will not push Bush’s Medicare or prescription drug plans because they lack votes for passage.

Yet, Benson also predicts that the fact that Congress is closely divided increases the chance that something will be done about providing prescription drug coverage to seniors through Medicare. Otherwise, Benson adds, Medicare reform will amount to nothing more than talk this year.

Meanwhile, Robert Greenwood, American Health Care Association for Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), says that bold, revolutionary proposals won’t be forthcoming from the nation’s evenly divided Congress.

Instead, legislators will take an incremental approach toward program development.

“A long term care agenda has not emerged yet,” Greenwood observes. “We don’t even have an administrator for the Health Care Financing Administration, the agency that manages the Medicaid program.”

Greenwood says, in the long run,” We’re hopeful that the Bush Administration will take seriously its responsibility to provide long-term care providers with the needed resources to provide quality of care and to fund a regulatory system that allows providers to do their job while still protecting vulnerable residents.”