Senate Finance Committee Votes Tomorrow on Health Reform

On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the Senate Finance Committee will vote to approve its version of healthcare reform, which includes Chairman Max Baucus' redrafted legislation as amended during committee deliberations.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the official scorekeeper of legislation, has tallied the cost of the bill at $829 billion. This is less than the $900 billion that the president and Baucus, D-Mont., were seeking. The bill also reduces the budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will meld this legislation with the bill approved in July by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The combined version will then be sent to the CBO for an official cost estimate necessary prior to consideration by the full Senate.

Since the Constitution mandates that legislation with tax revenues originate in the House, Sen. Reid is expected to "call up" for consideration a House-passed bill related to the AIG bailout and substitute the healthcare reform language for that currently contained in the bailout measure. Republicans are expected to object to consideration of the bill, forcing Reid to file a cloture motion to cut off the filibuster and move to consideration of healthcare reform by the full Senate. This will require 60 votes. If Sen. Reid succeeds, anywhere from hundreds to more than 1,000 amendments could be offered for consideration.

Since most analysts believe that the majority of the re-crafted Senate bill will be derived from the Finance bill, there is an opportunity to reach out to Senators related to specific concerns such as the cuts in Medicare physician reimbursement and to postpone CME proposed cuts that are to be implemented on January 1st since some of those changes in RVUs include dramatic cuts in reimbursement that could impact patient access to care.

The Finance bill only provides a 0.5 percent Medicare payment increase in 2010 and then reverts to massive cuts of approximately 25 percent in 2011 and beyond. There is hope that amendments will be offered during the Senate Floor Debate to address some of these key issues.

Groups such as the Medical Group Management Association (MCMA) and the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) have tools on their websites to facilitate access to members of Congress on these issues.