Senate Democrats move to fix Medicare Physician Payment Issue

In a surprise move today, Senate Democrats are making a push to separate the troubling Medicare physician fee schedule issue from health reform. There is bipartisan support to address the issue but the cost of doing so has grown over many years. Now the cost of permanently fixing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) flaw in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule artificially adds over $200 Billion to the cost of health reform which is why only another one-year temporary fix was included in the Senate Finance Committee's health plan.

Today, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) introduced the "Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009" (S. 1776). The bill would repeal permanently the sustainable growth rate (SGR) payment methodology. Senator Stabenow requested that the bill be considered immediately under a procedure called Rule 14, which waives Committee consideration of the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will attempt to bring S. 1776 before the full Senate tomorrow. However if there is an objection, Senator Reid will file a cloture motion which would limit debate and require 60 votes.

Note that our understanding is that this does not have an offset, the Senate will be required to waive the Budget Act prior to final passage which also requires 60 votes. From a health policy perspective, separately addressing this Medicare issue makes sense since the issue has been deferred for many years with one year temporary fixes and has basically led to no increases in Medicare reimbursement for physicians for close to a decade.