All's been quiet on the health reform front for a couple of weeks, ever since the Senate passed its version of a reform bill on Christmas Eve. As I said in an earlier blog post, after both houses in Congress pass their versions of a bill, a conference committee is formed to merge both versions into a single piece of legislation acceptable to all. And by "all" I mean a majority in both houses.
The most recent news trickling out of Washington is that crucial negotiations to draft a compromise "conference" bill are happening behind closed doors. Top House and Senate leaders are meeting in private to hash out details, despite a pledge by then-candidate Barack Obama that health reform negotiations would be "televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."
The President is reportedly investing a significant amount of time in these private talks, staying for most of a daylong session with top Democratic lawmakers at the White House yesterday.
It's no secret that Obama hopes to have a completed bill in hand before his 2010 State of the Union address, tentatively set for Jan. 26 but likely to be pushed back to Feb. 2 due to the lengthy conference process.
What does this all mean for physicians? Good question. Most of the major differences between the House and Senate reform bills revolve around the scope of subsidies for the poor and uninsured, how to pay for them and whether or not a public option will exist in any form. That massive 21.3% Medicare pay cut, on hold until March 1, still looms large for you and your peers. The latest word is that separate Congressional action (i.e., outside of the final health reform bill) will be required to handle the cut. A permanent Medicare pay fix comes with a price tag of more than $200 billion, which no politician wants to see attached to an already pricy bill that they're trying to pass.