Sen. Baucus To Send Bill Delaying Medicare Physician Fee Reductions Straight to Senate Floor
Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Thursday said he intends to send a bill addressing a scheduled reduction in Medicare physician fees straight to the Senate floor rather than have the committee do a mark up, CongressDaily reports. While Baucus said he wanted the committee to mark up the bill, other committee members and Senate leaders thought that a single floor debate would be more efficient.The American Medical Association is lobbying for a bill sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) that would increase physician fees by 1.8% for 18 months and would not include "balloon financing" language that would set up higher pay cuts in the future to compensate for a temporary delay. The bill would cost almost $40 billion over five years and $84 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
CBO estimates that a 1.5% to 1.7% fee increase would cost $8.7 billion over five years and that maintaining current payment levels would cost $8.1 billion over the same time period. Those estimates assume that a fee cut of at least 20% would take effect in 2010. CBO said that a 1% increase through 2009 without a later cut would cost $35.7 billion over five years and $80 billion over 10 years (Johnson, CongressDaily, 4/4).
AARP Opposes Bush Medicare Proposal
AARP this week launched a campaign that urges lawmakers to oppose a Medicare proposal from President Bush that would raise premiums for the prescription drug benefit for higher-income beneficiaries, CQ HealthBeat reports. The campaign includes advertisements in several Capitol Hill publications and a Web site, at which visitors can send letters to members of Congress expressing their dissent. The Bush proposal is in response to "trigger" language in the 2003 Medicare law that requires the president to propose legislation to control spending if Medicare draws more than 45% of its funding from general tax revenues two years in a row. The House has until June 30 to amend Bush's bill and discharge it from committees for a floor vote.
AARP Senior Vice President David Sloane said, "We're halfway to the June 30 deadline, and Congress still has much to do. We hope to raise awareness about the fact that people in Medicare have already seen their premiums skyrocket and should not be hit with even higher bills" (Cooley, CQ HealthBeat, 4/3).
