This Week's TriFacta for October 1
Jobs and the Economy
Small Business Owners Cannot Hire Because of President Obama’s Failed Policies: A survey from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) released last week revealed that 69 percent of small business owners and manufacturers say President Obama’s Executive Branch and regulatory policies have hurt American small businesses and manufacturers. In addition, 67 percent say there is too much uncertainty in the market today to expand, grow or hire new workers. Perhaps most shockingly, 55 percent of small business owners say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.
Spending
FY2012 Officially Ends With Fourth Straight $1 Trillion Deficit: President Obama has set a frightening precedent with the fourth consecutive $1 trillion deficit under his watch. Today marks the beginning of fiscal year 2013, and even without including the deficit in the month of September, the fiscal year 2012 deficit has already reached $1.16 trillion according to the Department of Treasury. The end of the fiscal year marks the fourth consecutive deficit of more than $1 trillion under President Obama. Before the president took office, the highest deficit in history was $458 billion.
Medicare
Two Parts of ObamaCare Go Into Effect October 1, 2012: The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program reduces Medicare payments that would otherwise be made to hospitals to account for excess hospital readmissions. Penalties will be based on hospitals' 30-day readmission rates for heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia; the maximum penalty for FY 2013 is 1 percent, and will increase to 2 percent in FY 2014 and 3 percent in FY 2015. Safety-net hospitals are expected to be hit the hardest. Under the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, Medicare will withhold 1 percent of reimbursements to acute care hospitals starting in FY 2013 and redistribute the funds to the best-performing hospitals. Seventy percent of the bonuses will be based on how often hospitals follow clinical guidelines for basic care and 30 percent will be determined by how hospitals perform in patient satisfaction surveys. The amount withheld will rise to 2 percent by 2016. Both programs aim to reward hospitals for providing more efficient and higher quality care and penalize those that don’t.
The Republican Plan for Job Creation and Growth
House Republicans have a plan to restore confidence and certainty to the economy and create jobs. For more information on the House Republican Growth Plan, click here: http://www.gop.gov/indepth/jobs.
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If you have any questions or would like to submit an idea for next week’s “Tri-Facta,” please contact Lisa Collins.
For additional information, contact:
The House Republican Conference Policy Office
