ABSTRACT
National health insurance proposals got off to a quick start in the 92nd Congress with the reintroduction, in somewhat modified form, of the "Health Security" proposals, introduced in both the House and the Senate in January. The dramatic events surrounding welfare reform thus had obvious implications for Medicaid. Most of the House proposals for Medicaid were left untouched by the Senate. Central to all of the debates on national health insurance in the 92nd Congress was the Nixon Administration’s own proposals. Taken together, the Medicare and Medicaid provisions of the Senate Finance Committee's version of H. R. 17550 represented a potpourri of proposals rather than one integrated whole. Standards for extended care facilities under Medicare and skilled nursing homes under Medicaid were finally combined, as so-called skilled nursing facilities. Full federal funding of nursing home inspections was allowed; and standards were to be developed, by diagnosis, for the minimum periods during which the post-hospital patient would be eligible for benefits.
