The U.S. Capitol rotunda. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Senators who want to make workers' preventive health tax breaks more generous or U.S. Labor Department compliance programs more aggressive may have to wrestle with other senators for room in the federal budget.
The Senate Budget Committee leaders told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that it should find some combination of spending cuts and revenue increases that will reduce the federal budget deficit by at least $1 billion over the 10-year period from 2025 through 2024.
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The Senate Budget Committee put the $1 billion Senate HELP budget deficit reduction goal in a draft budget resolution that was posted Friday.
The committee is predicting that the U.S. federal government will record a $783 billion deficit this year on $3.9 trillion in revenue.
The country has accumulated about $36 billion in debt.
Related: Employers and benefits brokers unite to defend group health tax exclusion
The Senate Budget Committee plans to work on the budget resolution during a two-day meeting set to start Wednesday.
The U.S. Labor Department has a total of about $14 billion in discretionary budget authority this year. The department's Employee Benefits Security Administration, which regulates self-insured employer health plans and other benefits plans, such as retirement plans, spends about $200 million per year.
Senate HELP may also have a say over some other types of taxes, fees and programs, such as federal group health benefits standards and federal group health benefits tax breaks.
Some examples of active benefits-related bills now under the jurisdiction of the Senate HELP Committee include a prostate cancer screening benefits bill and a bill intended to provide mental health support for health care workers.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
