Physicians are now feeling the effect of a 21% cut in their Medicare payments, and efforts to even temporarily reverse that cut are stalled on Capitol Hill.
On June 18, the Senate passed a bill (H.R. 3962) that would replace the 21% Medicare physician fee cut with a 2.2% pay raise through Nov. 30. The provision had been pulled out of a larger legislative package (H.R. 4213) that includes extensions of unemployment benefits, extra federal Medicaid funding, and several jobs provisions. Senate leaders had been unable to pass the larger package, known as the tax extenders bill, so they focused on the more popular physician-payment provision and passed it separately.
House members had been expected to vote on the measure when they returned to the Capitol on June 22, but so far House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has not agreed to take up the physician-pay bill. Although Speaker Pelosi supports reversing the pay cut, she said the Senate's bill fell short when it came to addressing the issue: On May 28, the House passed legislation that would have replaced the 21% cut with small pay increases for physicians through 2011. Speaker Pelosi said she was also disappointed by the Senate's lack of action on the rest of the tax extenders package, especially the jobs provisions.
"I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate," Speaker Pelosi said in a statement on June 18. "House Democrats are saying to Republicans in the Senate: show us the jobs!"