30 June 2008
The planned 10.6 percent in cuts for doctors treating Medicare patients is temporally frozen as Congress left for the midsummer recess without resolving the cut. Both parties are charging each other with playing politics with Medicare. The Democrats want to postpone the cuts for 18 months and pay for it by cutting payments to Medicare Advantage, a program of private fee-for-service insurers and HMOs. The AMA and AARP claim that cuts to doctors will cause a lot of doctors to drop out of the program making it harder for seniors to find primary care doctors.
Things got really heated in the Senate even leading to a shouting match. The White House is threatening a veto (their usual threat when not getting their way) over Medicare Advantage cuts saying that the Senate Finance Committee has a compromise in the works. After the Senate reconvenes July 7, it will have three days to pass a fix before the freeze is lifted.
Entries (RSS)