Copyright 2000 The Seattle Times Company
The
Seattle Times
October 6, 2000, Friday Second Edition
SECTION: ROP ZONE; News; Pg. A6; Capital Watch
LENGTH: 775 words
HEADLINE:
Republicans craft plan to let Cuba receive food
BODY:
WASHINGTON--House and Senate GOP negotiators agreed last night on a plan to
allow the sale of food to Cuba for the first time in nearly four decades, a move
they said would clear the way for an easing of sanctions against communist
leader Fidel Castro's regime.
The agreement would end the unilateral
trade embargo against Cuba and four other countries blacklisted by the State
Department: Iran, Sudan, Libya and North Korea. Farmers would be allowed to
begin selling grain and rice to these countries, although in the case of Cuba
they would not be able to use U.S. banks to finance the deals.
The
effort has been led by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash.
The Cuba
provision was the last remaining item as negotiators worked through an
$80 billion agriculture-spending bill for the coming year. They
also put final touches on a GOP-drafted drug-reimportation measure designed to
increase U.S. consumers' access to lower-cost drugs marketed overseas and eased
restrictions that could qualify up to to 900,000 families for food stamps.
Feds seek to deny states excess funds for Medicaid
The
government issued proposed regulations yesterday to close a loophole in Medicaid
rules that has let Washington, Oregon and 18 other states reap billions of
excess federal dollars from the health-care program for the poor. Critics say
the practice threatens to cost taxpayers $127 billion over the
next 10 years.
The regulations would phase out the extra payments over
five years. No funding would be cut in the current fiscal year.
In
addition, federal officials would continue a higher payment level for public
hospitals, which often serve considerably more lower-income patients. The
administration also said it would support legislation to increase payments to
both public and private hospitals by $10 billion over 10 years.
States and health-care providers have 30 days to comment on the proposed
rule. A final regulation will be published afterward.
Here's how the
loophole works: The Medicaid program is a joint project, with the federal
government paying at least 50 percent of the costs. States with proportionately
larger poor populations receive a larger share from the federal government.
Under the loophole, a state could list the cost of services at the maximum rate
a local or county-owned facility charges, billing the federal government for
half, even though the state has arrangements with the providers to pay less than
the maximum rate.
House committee chairman draws ethics rebuke
The House ethics committee rebuked powerful committee chairman Bud
Shuster yesterday for "serious official misconduct" but spared him from harsher
penalties for accepting improper gifts, favoring a lobbyist and misusing
congressional staff for politics.
An unrepentant Shuster, R-Pa., whose
Transportation Committee controls funding for the nation's highways, mass
transit and airports, dismissed the action in a written response as "overkill."
Shuster maintained that he "complied with the law and with his understanding of
what was right."
Colleagues who investigated Shuster and his ties to
lobbyist Ann Eppard pronounced themselves "disturbed" by the lawmaker's
defiance. They cited evidence that he allowed Eppard, after she resigned as
Shuster's chief of staff in 1994, to continue lobbying him on behalf of her
clients and accepted a Christmas vacation trip to Puerto Rico from interests she
represented.
In a House floor speech before several dozen colleagues
yesterday, Shuster explained why he negotiated the letter of reprimand: "I
accept the findings to stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees to put this behind
us."
House offers $1 billion yearly to prevent and
treat AIDS
The House has agreed to provide more than $1
billion a year for AIDS prevention and treatment in a bill that for the first
time factors in HIV infection in addition to AIDS cases in determining how
federal money will be distributed.
The legislation, which the House
passed 411-0 yesterday, reauthorizes for five years the Ryan White CARE
Act, which expired when the new fiscal year began Oct. 1. It now
returns to the Senate for what is expected to be quick approval.
Senate
OKs stopgap funds to keep government running
The Senate yesterday gave
quick approval to a second budget extension as legislators and the Clinton
administration haggled over the stack of spending bills that remain stalled five
days into the new fiscal year.
The measure, which passed by a 95-1 vote
after no debate, will keep much of the government operating through Oct. 14. The
current stopgap spending measure expires tomorrow.
GRAPHIC: photo; Bud Shuster
LOAD-DATE: December 4, 2000 
