House chair presses dispute with administration over testimony

House Small Business Committee Chairman Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., is demanding that Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Thomas Scully publicly apologize to the committee for declining to appear at a hearing earlier this month and is asking Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to require him to testify at a May 16 hearing.

"Mr. Scully must show appropriate deference to the prerogatives of committee chairmen, including the chairman of the Small Business Committee, including obeying the chairman's decision on composition of panels," said Manzullo in a letter, obtained by CongressDaily, which was sent to Thompson via fax Thursday.

"The secretary will be responding to Manzullo and, yes, Scully will be testifying," said an administration source reached Thursday night.

Scully did not appear when he was subpoenaed for an April 10 committee hearing concerning regulatory burdens on portable X-ray providers and others.

Scully said he did not want to appear on a panel with those he regulates, but Manzullo insisted it is the chairman's right to set up the panels and cited several occasions in which administration officials have testified on the same panel as lobbyists.

Republican leaders have been trying to defuse the dispute between Manzullo and the administration, but Manzullo appears unappeased.

"Contempt of Congress is very serious...Resolution of the issues facing small healthcare providers was my initial reason for holding the hearing, and it is with this goal in mind that I would like your assurance that the department and CMS will help reduce regulatory burdens on small healthcare providers," Manzullo said in the letter to Thompson.

Also in the letter, Manzullo asked that Thompson direct CMS to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires agencies to reduce regulator burdens on small business; begin a rulemaking process to recalculate cost data regarding certain reimbursement codes; provide information on the number of portable X-rays and electrocardiograms taken in skilled nursing facilities; create a separate panel for limited license practitioners subject to Medicare reimbursement; reclassify the "Merry Walker" as an ambulatory device; and work with the committee on issues connected to reductions in the physician fee schedule.