House Passes Physician Pay Fix
BY LAUREN UZDIENSKI, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
Last week the House voted 243-183 in favor of a new bill that would prevent a 21% cut to Medicare payments due to take effect in January, scrapping the SGR method that ties payments to economic growth and thus permanently fixing the pay issue. Historically, Congress has intervened at the 11th hour to put a one-year patch on scheduled pay cuts.
While the bill has a victory in the House, its fate is unclear in the Senate. A similar bill died in the Senate last month after its sponsor, Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), failed to identify budget offsets, and the chamber's healthcare overhaul legislation currently includes the usual one-year patch on the pay cuts.
The physician pay fix has generally been kept separate from broader healthcare reform legislation because of its cost; the House's plan will cost $210 billion, which would add to the chamber's current projections of $1.05 trillion. President Obama has said he won't sign a bill costing over $900 billion. The Senate's version of the bill came in at $848 billion.
