House Passes "Medicare Doc Fix"
The House of Representatives passed the Medicare Payment Reform Act today by a vote of 243 to 183.
The measure is a permanent fix costing $210 billion. It must still clear the Senate, however, before the president can sign it into law. If Congress does not pass it, doctors' Medicare reimbursement rates will be cut by 21 percent in January.
The fix is not paid for, even though House Democrats attached pay-go legislation to the bill. The move is an attempt to force the Senate to accept their solution to curbing the massive deficit, but the Senate has resisted pay-go legislation so far. This is something that would need to be worked out between the two chambers in conference if the Senate is able to pass its own "Medicare doc fix" bill.
The pay-go legislation would force lawmakers to offset all new entitlement spending or tax cuts -- excluding the "doc fix," the Alternative Minimum Tax, the estate tax and the extension of former President George W. Bush's tax cuts for people who make less than $250,000.
Additionally, pay-go would not apply to appropriations bills. With so many exceptions -- including the "doc fix" itself -- Republicans are calling pay-go a sham.
The Senate tried, and failed on a procedural vote, to pass an unpaid for "Medicare doc fix" last month.
