House conferees to the Labor/HHS appropriations bill met last night to made adjustments to the conference report that was rejected by the full House on November 17. The conferees agreed to increase funding for rural health care programs by about $90 million and remove a provision barring coverage of erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra through Medicare. Seven of the 22 House Republicans who voted against the bill in November said they did so primarily because of insufficient funding levels for the rural health care programs. Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, strongly opposed the Medicare provision. The revised agreement does not increase the total funding for programs within the bill. It offsets the changes by scaling back funding for the HHS vaccine pandemic preparedness fund. That fund is likely to see huge increases in funding through a $4 billion emergency request for flu preparedness to be added to the Defense appropriations bill. Rep. David Obey (D-WI), ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, criticized the revised bill for cutting $1.5 billion from 2005 funding levels and emphasized all programs under the bill would receive an additional $1.4 billion cut should Congress include an across-the-board cut to discretionary spending before they wrap up their session this year, as they are widely expected to do. Obey released a statement saying: It is ironic that these actions come one week before Christmas. The holidays are supposed to be a time of generosity - a time when Santa Claus fills children's stockings with presents. Instead, this Congress is practicing Scrooge-onomics, gutting programs for children and those in need.