Published: 2009-11-01 22:42:46
Author: Ted Barrett and Alan Silverleib | CNN | October 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Democrats struggled Tuesday to find enough votes to pass a controversial measure intended to ensure that doctors experience no cut in Medicare reimbursement payments over the next 10 years.
The bill would cost $247 billion and is separate from proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system expected to reach the House and Senate in coming weeks.
Under the bill proposed by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, Congress would override a formula it set more than a decade ago that was intended to prevent Medicare costs from rising faster than planned. The formula calls for cutting projected Medicare reimbursements to doctors, and Stabenow's bill would reverse those cuts, just as Congress has done repeatedly since the formula was imposed in 1997.
Democrats say addressing the formula must remain separate from new health care reform proposals that include plans to save $500 billion in Medicare costs by eliminating waste and fraud.
However, Republicans argue the Stabenow bill is intended to avoid adding the higher-than-planned Medicare costs to the comprehensive health care legislation.
Stabenow argued at a Capitol Hill news conference Tuesday that her bill is necessary to create more stability for health care providers in a current climate of uncertainty. She was joined by representatives of the American Medical Association, the senior citizens advocacy group AARP and the Military Officers Association of America.
"It's important to invest in quality care," Stabenow said. "Now is the time, before we move forward with a new [health care] system, to get this right."
Dr. J. James Rohack, head of the AMA, argued the formula should be permanently scrapped.
"There's widespread agreement that this formula is broken," he said.
Without congressional action, Rohack said, physicians could face a cumulative 40 percent reduction in Medicare payments over the next six years -- a huge problem as baby boomers become old enough to qualify for Medicare. Doctors are currently slated to be hit with a 21 percent reimbursement cut early next year.
Conservative critics have slammed the Stabenow bill as a fiscally reckless attempt by health care reform advocates to win the support of groups such as the influential AMA at taxpayer expense.
In addition, Republicans claim that Democratic efforts to divorce changes in the Medicare reimbursement formula from broader health care reform efforts are an attempt to mask the true costs of reform. Democratic leaders have promised that the sweeping health care bills currently moving through Congress will not add to the federal deficit.
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