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Medicare drug plan, update fix almost ready, House GOP says

But relief for physicians will only come if Senate Democrats take action.

By Markian Hawryluk, amednews staff. May 6, 2002.

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Washington -- Republican leaders in Congress have promised to bring a comprehensive Medicare reform package including a prescription drug benefit and a physician update fix to the House floor by Memorial Day.

That may be the easy part.

Lawmakers are hoping that the public clamor for a Medicare prescription drug benefit will force the Senate into taking action on the package so it avoids the fate of other health bills left on the Senate's doorstep. The Senate failed to act on the House-passed prescription drug benefit in 2000 and the regulatory relief measure passed last year.

House Energy and Commerce Chair Billy Tauzin (R, La.) hopes this year will be different. His committee is working in tandem with the House Ways and Means Committee to reach agreement on a single Medicare bill. The panels could vote on the measure early in May.

Republicans from both committees have expressed a desire to fix the physician payment formula, which has resulted in a 5.4% cut this year, and could lead to a 20% cut in physician reimbursements through 2005.

"We are making progress," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said about the negotiations over the physician update. "There's no consensus yet but it's moving in the right direction."

While the will to change the update is there, lawmakers say the way is still unclear. House leaders and the Bush administration have insisted that any new funding for Medicare practitioners be offset by savings in other areas of the program.

"The questions of budget neutrality continue obviously to plague us," Tauzin told reporters at an April briefing. "Nevertheless that's the instruction, and our committee has to live within those instructions from the leadership and from the president." [...]