When President Barack Obama promised that health care reform would be fully paid for, many wondered how Democrats would fund a key provision whose cost is almost a third of the reform’s $900 billion price tag: protecting doctors from annual cuts to their Medicare reimbursement rates.
The Senate’s answer? Leave it out of the health care bill, rename it a “budgetary problem” and fix it separately — but without paying for it — by lumping it into the national debt. Voilà, promise kept.
That’s how Senate Democrats are dealing with their $245 billion Medicare reimbursement dilemma. The so-called doc fix was long expected to be part of comprehensive health care reform, but House and Senate Democrats now are signaling that they plan separate bills to deal with the expensive problem.
In the Senate, the bill could be on the floor as early as this week, but the fix-it-now, pay-for-it-later approach is already drawing fire from Republicans, moderate Democrats and budget watchdogs.
Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense said the tourniquet tactic is “like saying I can meet my weight-loss goals if I ignore my butt. Or I can ignore my calorie limit if I eat food standing up.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said his conference supports the fix and will introduce amendments to pay for it, also criticized the move as a budgetary sleight of hand. - Politico Story
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