Bloomberg

U.S. House Won’t Pass Medicare Bill Without Larger Jobs Plan

By Brian Faler

June 21 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her chamber won’t pass a Senate bill to halt a cut in Medicare payments to doctors until the Senate also acts on job-creation legislation.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement that the Senate measure passed on June 18 was “inadequate” because it didn’t address other parts of a jobs bill passed by the House on May 29.

“I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate,” she said

The House measure would extend unemployment insurance, restore some tax breaks and raise taxes on managers of buyout funds and other investment partnerships.

Senate Democratic leaders repeatedly trimmed their version of the jobs bill, which included the Medicare-payment provision, in an unsuccessful effort to attract votes.

They decided to pass the measure addressing solely the Medicare payments just as a 21 percent cut in payments to doctors were to take effect. The bill would delay the reductions until December.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on June 18 it would begin processing claims at the lower payment rate because the Senate bill hadn’t cleared Congress and been signed into law.

Negotiations on the rest of the Senate jobs measure are to continue this week.

--Editors: Laurie Asseo, Don Frederick

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva@bloomberg.net