Conservatives Filibuster Medicare Patients
On Thursday, Senate conservatives blocked a bill that would have
averted a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. The bill,
which would have canceled a reduction in Medicare fees and increased
doctor pay by 1.1 percent, passed
the House last week 355-59. But
the Senate failed to invoke cloture
on the bill by only one vote. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was the
only senator to miss the vote,
besides Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who
is undergoing treatment
for a brain tumor.
The bill had proposed offsetting the increased doctor pay by
reducing payments to Medicare Advantage's private fee-for-service
insurers, a provision opposed by the White House. In a "misleading"
move, the Bush administration announced this week it had asked the
Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to
delay making payments to
physicians until July 15, giving the Senate time to pass another
bill after the July 4th recess. Yet as Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) explained, the administration was simply
following existing law, and it
is "misleading the public by
claiming" to help ameliorate the negative effects of a
legislative
move it endorsed.
SENIORS
SUFFER MOST: The
recalcitrant position of the conservatives and the White House creates
real victims. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
said, Senate
conservatives "are playing a dangerous game of chicken. The
only losers will be Medicare patients, old people."
"A lot of
physicians will limit
the number of Medicare patients
they will see" as a result of the pay cut, said Dr. Lee Schoeffler, a
Tulsa, OK ophthalmologist. A poll by the American Medical Association
found
that 60
percent of physicians
"said they would limit the number of new Medicare patients they would
see if a cut took effect." Even as doctors sought to ward off the
latest cuts, the CMS announced Monday the legislation would mean
Medicare payments to doctors would undergo a further drop
another 5.4 percent
in 2009. It is not just Medicare patients and doctors who will feel the
pinch. "Most private insurance companies will begin reducing their
reimbursement rates to doctors because they use Medicare as a
benchmark" in setting their rates. "It
doesn't hit just Medicare," Schoeffler
said. "It works its way
down into every part of the community."
CONSERVATIVES
VERSUS DOCTORS: Physicians groups
aim to remind voters of the fact
that the blame for the pay cut lies squarely at the feet of
conservatives this fall. The American Medical Association is
planning a
television and radio campaign ad
targeting conservative senators who voted against the legislation. The
ads will run initially in six states: Mississippi, New Hampshire,
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. Yesterday, the Texas
Medical Association withdrew its endorsement of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
for reelection, citing his vote against the Medicare payment bill. "The
Texas Medical Association Political Action Committee (TEXPAC) is
outraged that you made the decision to follow the direction of the Bush
Administration and voted
to protect health insurance companies
at the expense of America's seniors, those with disabilities, and
military families," wrote El Paso physician Manuel Acosta, chairman of
the medical association's board, in a letter to Cornyn.
BUSH
BULLYING: The White House
was adamant
in its opposition
to the bill, citing concerns that it cut privatized Medicare Advantage
(MA) funding, in effect prioritizing a minority of MA patients at the
expense of the more than 80
percent of seniors
who are enrolled in traditional Medicare programs. Senate conservatives
used the White House veto threat as a shield for their own votes. Sen.
Jim Inhofe (R-OK) denounced the congressional leadership for bringing
the
measure for a vote, "[d]espite knowing that their bill was doomed
from the start." Politico
reports that the White House pushed
vulnerable
senators to switch their votes in some "eleventh-hour" dealings. Officials
promised Sen. Arlen Specter
(R-PA), who has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and
previously supported a similar Medicare bill, "an administrative fix to
increase Medicare reimbursements for oncologists." Specter denied
that there was a "quid pro quo." Speaking on the Senate floor after the
failed vote, Reid ridiculed conservatives for being too afraid to stand
up to the deeply unpopular president. "But I'm watching a few of them
pretty
closely and I would say to all these people who are up for election, if
you think you can go home and say 'I voted no' because this weak
president, the weakest political standing since they have done polling,
'I
voted because I was afraid to override his veto.'
Come on!"
|
|
|
|
Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) office has begun "laying the groundwork for a new attempt to provide universal healthcare." The plans signal that Kennedy "intends to work vigorously to build bipartisan support for a major healthcare initiative when he returns to Washington in the fall."
NEW YORK: Gov. David Paterson (D) is reviewing legislation that would ensure child prostitutes are "treated as victims and get services to help escape exploitation."
MASSACHUSETTS: "[L]egislators approved a bill they said will strengthen the state's child welfare system, with stricter standards for how agencies investigate abuse."
KENTUCKY: State police are scaling back patrols to save gas.
THINK
PROGRESS: Fox News guest:
Guantanamo Bay is "really more like a Boy
Scout camp than it is a prison camp."
WONK
ROOM: CNN's Larry King Live
panders to Big Oil "heroes."
MOJO
BLOG: Torture critic Phillipe
Sands writes to torture advocate John
Yoo about Yoo's false statements during congressional testimony.
MEDIA
MATTERS:
MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "They're the working-class white voters...the
regular folks."
"All other goals -- including...reform of de-Baathification and
disarmament laws...were rated 'satisfactory.'"
-- Washington Post,, 7/2/08,
on
a U.S. Embassy report about Iraq
VERSUS
"[I]mplementation of the [de-Baathification] law is bogged down by
infighting between politicians. ... The government has still not
appointed a seven-member panel to replace the de-Baathification
Committee."
-- Reuters, 6/17/08
Topic Cloud
