The House Puts Off the Medicare Pay Cut—Again
OK, maybe the health-care summit was "a gabfest . . . with no tangible results," but Congress did do something concrete about health care yesterday: it started the process of blocking the pending 21.2 percent Medicare pay cut to doctors. Unsurprisingly, it did so by doing what it's done every single year that the pay cut has come up: it asked for more time. Last night the House gave the cut, along with several other expiring Medicare and health-related policies, a 30-day reprieve.
What's going to happen next? Keep your eye on the senior senator from Kentucky, who's been stopping the Senate from following the House's lead:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has on several occasions tried to move the package quickly, using a legislative maneuver that requires all senators to first agree to it in exchange for a fast-tracked vote. But retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) has blocked the move, saying that to pass it as is would add to the national debt.
The provisions have instead landed on a second bill meant to increase jobs nationally while keeping the ones already on payroll. That package could move as early as today, although its size and scope could prove troublesome for Democrats.
Assuming it can move quickly enough, the Senate will almost certainly punt and put off the cut, as the House did. But even if it doesn't and the pay cut actually does go into effect on Monday, we'll probably all be having this conversation again—because there's no way that doctors will let this rest.
The American Medical Association is now officially playing hardball on this issue. On its Web site, it's providing a state-by-state chart for doctors as to "how the looming Medicare cuts will affect access to care"—and a handout, updated since last night, about how physicians can " 'opt out' of Medicare under a private contract." In other words: "Hey, Congress, you want to scale back our pay? Fine, we're going to tell our docs how they can scale back your patients."
It's surely no coincidence that the AMA's National Advocacy Conference convenes on Monday in D.C. Will the doctors there be in complete revolt (if the pay cut goes through)? Or just immensely frustrated (if it gets put off by the Senate as well as the House)? We're betting on the latter, but stay tuned.
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Mary Carmichael was named General Editor in January 2007 after six years with Newsweek. She writes primarily for the Health, Science, and Society sections of the magazine. Previously, she was an assistant editor since 2003, contributing to the Science and Technology, Society and Tip Sheet sections of the magazine. She came to Newsweek in June 2001 as an intern for the Periscope section.
In her time at Newsweek, Carmichael has written three cover stories and contributed to many more. She also reported on-site from Ground Zero on September 11. She studied statistics with the Weidenbaum Center in 2006 and was a Journalism Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2003. She is also the co-author of the books "In the Beginning" and "Med School in a Box," and writes regularly for the Boston Globe Sunday magazine and other publications.
Carmichael has also worked as the producer of The Infinite Mind on National Public Radio, as an associate web producer of Frontline, as editor-in-chief for special projects for mental_floss magazine, and as a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times and the News & Observer of Raleigh. She graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in biological anthropology and public policy and completed a year of graduate work in psychology and anthropology at Columbia University.
She lives in Boston.
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