The Senate has approved how Medicare pays doctors, passing the bill for President Obama and resolving the issue which has been hanging for over a decade now
The 392-37 vote in the Senate had been a successful outcome for the Republicans, who came up with a solution for this intricate policy which has aggravated lawmakers of both parties. The bill has been endorsed by Obama and he said “It could help slow health care cost growth.” This bill also extends the Children’s Health Insurance Program for 2 years, till 2017.
The doctors would have been facing a 21% cut in Medicare fees by Wednesday or Thursday if Congress did not act upon it. Last year alone Medicare had spent $70 billion for paying doctors and other health care professionals under the fee schedule, accounting for almost 12% of all of their spending. 98% of the people registered in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program receive at least one physician service during the year.
This legislation supported by Obama has taken Medicare along with many other health policy experts in the direction where payment is going to be based on the quality and value of care, instead of the volume. This transformation in principle is now being accepted by organized medicine and the American Medical Association has lobbied assertively for passage of the bill, determined that Congress must “fix Medicare now.”
17 short-term bills had been passed by Congress since 2003 for blocking cuts in Medicare doctor’s fees which were called under the existing law. These cuts probably would be prompting doctors to accept lesser Medicare patients.
Senator Mitch McConnell R-Ky, the majority leader of the Senate said the bill had been “designed to ensure that seniors on Medicare don’t lose access to their doctors.”
“It’s a solution to a broken Medicare payment system that has vexed congressional leaders of both parties for years,” he said. “It would mean an end to the annual exercise of Congress passing a temporary fix to the problem one year and then coming right up to the very same cliff the next year.”
