Senate Finance Committee To Vote on Health Care Reform

The Senate Finance Committee recently finished marking up its version of health care reform legislation and sent the amended legislation to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for scoring*. According to a report released on the evening of Wednesday, October 7, the CBO estimated the legislation would cost $829 Billion over 10 years, bringing it well under the President's target (of $900 Billion). The Committee is scheduled a vote on Tuesday, October 13.

In addition to the amendments discussed previously, the final Finance Committee bill includes the following provisions that will impact physicians:

• Medicare Physician Payment:
  
  • This provision proposes a temporary fix to the scheduled 21 percent reduction in Medicare physician payment rates in 2010. The fix would provide a 0.5 percent increase in 2010.
    
  • The Committee adopted an amendment proposed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), which, beginning 2015, will pay physicians differentially based on the quality of care they achieve for Medicare patient relative to the cost.
    
• Medicare Commission
  
  • The legislation would create a permanent Medicare Commission with the mission to curve spending growth in the Medicare Program. The proposal would require the Commission to implement policies that reduce health care growth by at least 1.5 percent annually starting in 2014.
    
  • The Committee approved an amendment for Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to exempt hospitals from the Medicare Commission. This exemption increased the price of the bill by $11 billion.

Next Steps

Once the Finance Committee approves the amended legislation, Senate Leadership will work at merging the HELP bill and the Senate Finance Bill.

* CBO is required to develop a cost estimate for virtually every bill reported by Congressional committees to show how it would affect spending or revenues over the next five years or more. For most tax legislation, CBO uses estimates provided by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a separate Congressional analytic group that works closely with the two tax-writing committees. CBO also prepares cost estimates for use in drafting bills (especially in the early stages), formulating floor amendments, and working out the final form of legislation in conference committees. CBO's cost estimates have become an integral part of the legislative process, and committees increasingly refer to them at every stage of drafting bills. The estimates may also have an impact on the final outcome of legislation because they are used to determine whether committees are complying with the annual budget resolutions and reconciliation instructions.