Congress Passes Bill to Stop Cut to Medicare Docs
Source: abc NEWS
With just hours to spare, Congress stepped Monday to finalize legislation to prevent doctors who treat Medicare patients from being hit with a 24 percent cut in their payments from the government.
The Senate's 64-35 vote sends a measure to delay the cuts for a year to President Barack Obama, who's expected to quickly sign it. The House passed the measure last week.
The $21 billion measure would stave off a 24 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors for a year and extend dozens of other expiring health care provisions such as higher payment rates for rural hospitals. The legislation is paid for by cuts to health care providers, but fully half of the cuts won't kick in for 10 years.
It's the seventeenth temporary "patch" to a broken payment formula that dates to 1997 and comes after lawmakers failed to reach a deal on financing a permanent fix.
The measure passed the House on Thursday, but only after top leaders in both parties engineered a voice vote when it became clear they were having difficulty mustering the two-thirds vote required to advance it under expedited procedures. Several top Democrats opposed the bill, saying it would take momentum away from the drive to permanently solve the payment formula problem.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/congress-pass-bill-stop-cut-medicare-docs-23130062ource
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