UPDATE: Rep Hoyer Calls For 10-Year Fix For Medicare Payments
(Adds details.)
By Corey Boles
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A top House Democrat on Tuesday criticized a Senate
proposal for a one-year fix of Medicare reimbursements to doctors as a "facade,"
and charged it doesn't acknowledge long-term costs.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he believed Congress should
take up a 10-year proposal advocated by House Democrats to fix an annual
shortfall in federal payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. That
solution would cost $245 billion, he said.
In a bid to rein in federal spending on Medicare, Congress amended the program
in 1997 so that payments to doctors were linked to a complicated formula of
anticipated future growth in costs. But over time that funding formula hasn't
kept pace with doctors' costs.
As a result, each year, lawmakers must pass a measure to ensure that doctors
don't see a steep drop in Medicare compensation rates. Many have threatened to
withdraw from the Medicare program if the compensation rates decrease.
Hoyer said Tuesday he believed Congress should act to permanently address the
problem, rather than simply fix it for a year.
"I believe the one-year fix makes it look better, but it isn't better. It's a
facade," Hoyer said, at a weekly press conference.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office cites the cost of addressing the
shortfall in doctors' compensation over 10 years as one of the main reasons why
House versions of health-care legislation are more expensive than a Senate bill
being debated this week.
Hoyer agreed with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is
spearheading the health-care overhaul drive in the Senate on one point - neither
lawmaker believes a move to permanently address the Medicare physician
reimbursement issue is fundamentally part of health-care legislation.
Baucus said last week that is why he didn't include a longer-term fix for
medical reimbursement rates. Hoyer said Tuesday, the Medicare fix should be
attached to the health-care package because that is the next large legislation
that Congress is tackling, but that it could have been attached to any
legislation.
"Health-care reform happens to be the horse it's riding, it'll ride some
horse," Hoyer said.
-By Corey Boles, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6601; corey.boles@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
09-22-091654ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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