Following up on our 7-7-08 post, the Congress passed, by veto-proof majorities, a bill that blocked a 10% decrease in Meicare reimbursements to physicians. The Christian Science Monitor quoted White House spokesman Tony Fratto as saying "There's unquestionably a bigger-picture issue here: Congress refuses to look at ways to rein in costs to the Medicare program, and any single effort to do so they choose to turn into partisan fight. The Democrats will try to paint [Republicans] as people who want to cut health costs for seniors, so people trying to reform the program are left in this very dangerous situation."

The article went on to note the opposing positions on the bill:
"'Without a legislative fix, many doctors currently in the Medicare system would probably opt out of it, say lawmakers who backed the bill. "The California Medical Association tells me that if those mandated cuts [in physician fees] took place, we could lose 60 percent of doctors who currently take Medicare patients,' says Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California.

"But critics say that view ignores a longer-term entitlement crisis. 'Congress is preventing what would otherwise be a significant reduction in fees paid to Medicare to go into effect, but it in no way solves the fundamental problem of Medicare in general or the very significant problem of how we reimburse physicians and the perverse incentives of the current system,' says Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project Hope in Bethesda, Md., and former chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 1997 to 2001."

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