Sep 04, 2009  |  By: Chris Johnson  | COMMENTS     

Congress is expected to move on key LGBT-related bills when lawmakers return from their summer recess, although lobbyists say health care reform debate could delay action on the measures.

Activity could come as soon as this month on hate crimes legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, but sources familiar with Capitol Hill claim progress on the bills could be delayed if lawmakers devote more attention to health care.

“The timing of all of this activity is going to be based on what’s going on in both chambers in terms of health care reform,” said Laurie Young, interim director of public policy and government affairs for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. “So even though we have certain ideas of when things might move, there is probably some flexibility in that.”

David Stacy, senior public policy advocate for the Human Rights Campaign, said in July that the health care debate could delay congressional action on LGBT bills. The House and Senate committees working on ENDA are among the committees working on health care, he noted.

“Having health care slipping is certainly taking away from some period of time that we could have been really pushing hard to get a hearing on ENDA,” he said. “I don’t think the opportunity has disappeared, but if health care had been finished by now, then that would have given us a bit longer period of time to have senators focus on ENDA.”

Even though health care may push back action on LGBT bills, versions of health care legislation in the House contain provisions that would specifically address some LGBT issues.

House legislation contains provisions that would provide Medicaid coverage to people who have HIV, help people with AIDS gain access to drugs under Medicare Part D, bar discrimination in health care and allow for health data collection of LGBT people.

Young said the Task Force is “very excited” about the data collection provision in this legislation because “data is really one of the drivers that moves policy.”

“We don’t have data right now that really says what’s going on in the realities of people’s lives,” she said. “Without data, it’s hard to make predictions. It’s hard to develop a comprehensive service plan. It’s hard to get funding to pay for that comprehensive service plan.”

But at this point, there’s more than one version of House legislation. The Education & Labor Committee, the Ways & Means Committee and the Energy & Commerce Committee produced different versions of health care reform legislation. The committees will produce a unified bill after lawmakers meet in conference committee.

Two House committees included additional LGBT provisions in their legislation. The Ways & Means Committee adopted an amendment that would eliminate the taxation of domestic partner health benefits; the Energy & Commerce Committee approved a provision permitting state Medicaid programs to provide HIV treatment to individuals before they develop AIDS.

The situation is different in the Senate. Health care legislation produced by the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee doesn’t include LGBT provisions. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), has yet to make public its version of health care legislation.

Allison Herwitt, HRC’s legislative director, said in July she didn’t think the Finance Committee would produce any LGBT-specific language.

“Obviously, we’ve been working with Baucus as [well as] many people on Finance,” she said. “The Baucus bill, is obviously going to be, of all the pieces of legislation, the most scaled back and conservative when it comes to how they’re approaching health care reform.”

Herwitt said she was unsure whether LGBT provisions would be included in the final version of health care reform legislation produced by Congress, noting “it’s a long and winding road right now for health care reform.”

“Once these bills have been passed by the House and the Senate, the White House will come in and be part of the negotiations,” she said. “So, obviously, our goal is to have our provisions survive through the floor debate, and then survive through the House-Senate conference and get the White House behind our provisions and advocating for them and hopefully be a part of the final package.”

As health care reform debate continues, one LGBT bill expected to see action soon in Congress is a hate crimes measure.

The legislation would allow the Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of hate crimes committed against LGBT people resulting in death or serious injury.

In July, the Senate included a hate crimes provision as part of a major defense bill by amending the legislation on the Senate ...