December 9, 2010
House Passes Bill
Averting Cut in Medicare Reimbursements
Published: December 9, 2010 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that would
avert a 25 percent cut in Medicare
payments to doctors by freezing reimbursement rates at current levels until the
end of next year.
The bill goes now to President
Obama, who hailed the action by Congress and promised to sign the
legislation.
The House vote was 409 to 2.
The Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent on Wednesday.
AARP,
the lobby for older Americans, had pushed for the legislation, saying it was
needed to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries could continue seeing the doctors
who care for them.
Many doctors had said they would limit the number of their Medicare patients
if payments were cut on Jan. 1 under a statutory formula established by
Congress.
Doctors had sought a small increase in Medicare payments, to reflect their
rising costs. Still, the American
Medical Association thanked Congress for approving the legislation with a
one-year delay in the reimbursement cut.
Dr. Cecil B.
Wilson, president of the association, said doctors had gspent this year in
limboh because of uncertainty about Medicare payments.
The Congressional
Budget Office said that because of the reimbursement freeze, Medicare will
spend $15 billion more than it would have if the cuts had occurred.
The cost will be offset by changing a provision of the new health care law
that offers subsidies to lower-income people to help them buy health
insurance, starting in 2014. The bill allows the government to recoup more
of any overpayments that people might receive if they misstate their income or
earn more than they expect in a given year.
Under the law, the repayment is limited to $250 a year for an individual and
$400 for a family. Under the bill, the limits would be linked to a personfs
income and could be as high as $1,750 for an individual and $3,500 for a family.
The bill also allows childrenfs hospitals
to regain access to significant discounts on costly drugs prescribed for the
treatment of rare diseases and disorders. Under the new health care law,
childrenfs hospitals lost access to the discounts they had on such products,
known as orphan drugs.
Representative Henry
A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, blamed an error in the health care law for the loss of access.
Ted Slafsky, the
executive director of Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access, a
nonprofit group, welcomed the action by Congress. And he urged lawmakers to
allow rural hospitals and free-standing cancer
hospitals to obtain the same discounts.