The U.S. House on Dec. 13 approved legislation that would avert a scheduled 27% cut to Medicare physician fees, but President Obama has already threatened to veto the bill, which includes several other provisions he opposes.
Physicians who treat Medicare patients will see their payments cut by 27.4% on Jan. 1 if lawmakers cannot agree on a plan to stop the cuts. The statutory cuts are called for under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula, which ties changes in Medicare physician payments to the gross domestic product. The House bill, which primarily sought to extend the payroll tax holiday, passed in a 234 to 193 vote. The legislation would replace the massive Medicare physician pay cut with a 1% pay raise for doctors in 2012 and 2013.
The "Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act" (H.R. 3630) would pay for the fee fix in part by making cuts to funding for the Affordable Care Act, including the Prevention and Public Health Fund. Additionally, the bill would raise Medicare premiums for high-income beneficiaries.
While averting the physician pay cut before the end of the year has been a priority for both Democrats and Republicans, other controversial elements of the legislation are likely to keep it stalled in Congress. For instance, the bill includes a provision to fast-track the permitting for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would run between Canada and the United States. It would also roll back certain environmental regulations.
President Obama issued a veto threat, taking Republican leaders in the House to task for playing politics with issues like the tax holiday and the physician fee fix. "Instead of working together to find a balanced approach that will actually pass both Houses of Congress, H.R. 3630 instead represents a choice to refight old political battles over health care and introduce ideological issues into what should be a simple debate about cutting taxes for the middle class," the president wrote in his veto message to Congress.