WASHINGTON, D.C. —Senator Susan Collins has joined colleagues urging members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to retain the Senate-passed funding levels for rural health programs when the conference committee resumes negotiations on the FY2006 Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill.
Collins, a member of the Senate Rural Health Caucus, sent a letter signed by 41 other Senators to the subcommittee’s chairman and ranking member, Arlen Specter and Tom Harkin respectively. In it, they urge the Senators to support a $100 million rural health amendment which restored full funding for several important rural health initiatives.