The Senate has passed a $15 billion bill that would block the impending 25% cut in the Medicare payment rate to physicians and instead keep rates steady through 2011. The cut was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2011. If the House passes the bill -- which is likely -- it would be the fifth and longest extension of Medicare physician payment rates enacted this year. And it essentially puts doctors back in the yearly "last-minute-extension" cycle Congress has followed for most of the past decade.
What the bill does not do is fix the sustainable growth rate (SGR) problem, and doctors would be subject to a cut of more than 25% for treating Medicare patients in 2012 unless Congress figures out a long-term solution in the meantime.
Senate leaders reached a deal Tuesday evening on how to pay for the one-year fix in exchange for Republican support of the measure.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), people who make up to four times the federal poverty level will receive federal subsidies starting in 2014 to help them purchase the insurance that law mandates they have.
Under the "doc fix" deal, that bill increases the amount a person would have to pay the federal government if he or she received too large of a federal subsidy.
Under the law, if a person receiving the credit doesn't accurately state his or her income, or if the person's income increases during the year, he or she would have to pay the government back $250 or $400 for a family.
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