As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on October 30, 2013
S. 1557 would amend the Public Health Service Act to authorize payments to children’s hospitals for operating training programs that provide graduate medical education. Payments would be made to such hospitals for both direct and indirect costs related to graduate medical education. Direct costs are those related to operating a medical education program, such as the salaries of medical students, while indirect costs are those intended to compensate hospitals for patient care costs that are expected to be higher in teaching hospitals than in non-teaching hospitals.
S. 1557 would authorize the appropriation of $300 million a year for each of fiscal years 2014 through 2018 for payments to children’s hospitals. CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost about $1.4 billion over the 2014-2018 period, assuming the appropriation of the authorized amounts. Pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply to this legislation because it would not affect direct spending or revenues.
The bill contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.