Senate to Take Up Medicare ‘Doc Fix’ Bill After Recess
By Siobhan Hughes
The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2015
The Senate will take up legislation to replace a formula for reimbursing doctors who treat Medicare patients when the chamber returns from a two-week recess, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said early on Friday.
The House had one day earlier passed the bill in an overwhelming 392-37 vote. Supporters had hoped the Senate would take up the measure before a two-week spring that begins once the chamber adjourns Friday.
“We’ll turn to this legislation very quickly when we get back,” Mr. McConnell said. “There’s every reason to believe it’s going to pass the Senate by a very large majority.”
Dr. Robert Wah, the president of the American Medical Association, said his group was “extremely disappointed” that the Senate vote was delayed and said that physicians would face a “devastating” cut when the current patch expires just days from now.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that it takes a minimum of 14 days to pay claims from doctors. Lawmakers expect that if Congress acts soon enough the government would be able to make payments without imposing the pay cuts.
One possible wrinkle is that Mr. Reid appeared to request votes on a limited number of amendments related the legislation. Mr. McConnell said that he would “be discussing the way forward” with Mr. Reid.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-to-take-up-medicare-doc-fix-bill-after-recess-1427452707
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AARP Statement on House Passage of Medicare SGR Reform Bill
AARP, March 26, 2015
AARP applauds the House for its bipartisan work on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2) that permanently replaces the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. However, we remain concerned that Medicare beneficiaries are unfairly shouldering more than their fair share of the cost of the SGR “Doc Fix,” and we urge further improvements as the bill moves to the Senate.
While AARP commends the House of Representatives for working together in a bipartisan fashion on this SGR bill, we are concerned that Medicare beneficiaries will now face higher out-of-pocket costs, including higher premiums and reduced coverage through certain Medicare Supplemental (Medigap) plans. The typical senior on Medigap is not wealthy—nearly half have annual incomes of less than $30,000.
AARP wants a permanent solution to the SGR formula, one that achieves a balanced and fair solution for all stakeholders—Medicare beneficiaries, physicians and other health care providers, insurers, and drug companies. AARP is ready to work with the Senate to improve this important bill.
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Letter to Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
From Joe Baker, President
Medicare Rights Center, March 25, 2015
We are grateful to the House Republican and Democratic leadership for working to develop an SGR compromise. The SGR formula is fundamentally flawed, and permanent changes to the Medicare reimbursement system are long overdue. Yet, H.R. 2 does not represent a fair deal for people with Medicare—expecting too much from beneficiaries in return for too little.
We are concerned with the offset provisions in H.R. 2, including proposals to scale back comprehensive Medigap coverage and to increase costs for those already paying higher Part B and Part D premiums. The clients we represent include those beneficiaries whose Medicare cost sharing will be altered by the offsets included in H.R. 2. In particular, we are most troubled by the provision to prohibit Medigap plans from covering costs up to the Part B deductible, starting in 2020 for newly eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
We fundamentally disagree with the premise that Medigap “first-dollar” coverage should be undone as a means of controlling health care service utilization. Decades of empirical research consistently demonstrates that, while higher out-of-pocket costs certainly deter health care utilization, it deters utilization of needed care as well as unneeded care indiscriminately. Additionally, research consistently supports what we know to be true through our experience serving people with Medicare: health care providers—not beneficiaries— order services and ultimately drive utilization trends.
Medigap provides health security and peace of mind to beneficiaries living on fixed incomes. The value of Medigap to people with low- and middle-incomes is its predictability. Planning for the expense of a monthly premium is doable, but the same is not true for the unexpected cost of a deductible. This security is critically important to the 40% of Medigap enrollees with incomes below $30,000. We believe comprehensive, “first-dollar” Medigap plans should remain available to future retirees.
At the same time, additional income-relating of Part B and Part D premiums concerns us. These provisions in H.R. 2 represent a sizable cost shift to select Medicare beneficiaries, and half of the total offsets included in the legislative package.
http://www.medicarerights.org/pdf/hr2-house-letter-032515.pdf
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H.R. 2 – Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015
TITLE IV–OFFSETS
Subtitle A–Medicare Beneficiary Reforms
Sec. 401. Limitation on certain medigap policies for newly eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
Sec. 402. Income-related premium adjustment for parts B and D.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2/text
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
The decision of the U.S. Senate leadership to delay consideration of H.R. 2 (the SGR repeal bill) until after they take a two week recess provides us with an opportunity to join with others in demanding removal of two provisions that would be very harmful to our traditional Medicare program – means-tested premiums for Medicare Parts B and D, and imposing deductibles for beneficiaries of Medigap plans.
Although some might argue that these changes are comparatively trivial, make no mistake about the intent of these measures. Speaker John Boehner stated on the House floor that H.R. 2 is the beginning of the process of entitlement reform. In stating that this is “about strengthening and saving Medicare,” he really means that it is about reducing the government funding of Medicare by shifting more of the responsibility of payment to the Medicare beneficiaries, eventually culminating in the premium support (voucher) model of privatizing Medicare.
Recent Quote of the Day messages have sounded alarms about two major concerns of the “doc fix” legislation: (1) the administrative burdens that will be placed on health care professionals by the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the Alternative Payment Models (APMs), and (2) the efforts to push the traditional Medicare program in the direction of privatization.
Of these two, the administrative hassles of MIPS and APMs are the less urgent since precursors of these programs already exist. The existing Medicare reporting programs include PQRS, Meaningful Use, and Value Modifier. Alternative Payment Models include accountable care organizations (ACOs), patient-centered medical homes, and others. Merely eliminating MIPS and APMs from H.R. 2 will not adequately address these problems. They require much more work for a later date, hopefully leading to a single payer national health program.
On the other hand, eliminating means-tested premiums and mandated Medigap deductibles from H.R. 2 is an extremely urgent problem. We cannot allow incremental steps that shift more of the responsibility of paying for Medicare to the beneficiaries. AARP and the Medicare Rights Center agree. Sections 401 and 402 must be eliminated from H.R. 2.
Contact your Senators and urge other individuals and organizations to do likewise. Make telephone calls. Write letters. Send emails. Do it now.