IN THE MEDICARE BILL
• About 2 percent of the country’s highest-earning Medicare recipients would face higher premiums for doctor and prescription drug coverage. The higher premiums would apply to individuals earning between $134,000 and $214,000 and couples earning between $267,000 and $428,000.
• Starting in 2020, some people buying Medigap plans — they insure expenses Medicare does not cover — would pay higher out-of-pocket costs up to the Medicare deductible for doctors’ coverage, currently $147 annually.
• A 3.2 percent increase in Medicare payments to hospitals in 2018 would instead be phased in over six years.
• Nursing homes, hospices and home health providers would be held to a 1 percent Medicare increase in 2018.
• Scheduled cuts in payments to states for hospitals treating poor patients would be delayed a year to 2018 but also extended through 2025.
• Programs that help poor seniors pay Medicare deductibles and help some families keep Medicaid coverage as they move from welfare to jobs would become permanent.
— Associated Press
A budding bipartisan deal to shelter physicians from Medicare cuts, championed by the House’s two top leaders, is drawing powerful allies including the American Medical Association and a rainbow of conservative and liberal groups.
House aides released an outline of the emerging measure late Friday, and it confirmed what lawmakers, aides and lobbyists have described for days. The package is studded with provisions that draw many Democrats, including two more years of money for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and community health centers, plus language boosting Medicare costs for some beneficiaries that appeals to Republicans eager to retool the costly program’s finances.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have pressed the effort to resolve a problem that has exasperated Congress for years. Their rare alliance has given the proposed deal momentum among lawmakers of both parties eager to be rid of the issue.
The proposal is also attracting powerful foes and its fate is not guaranteed. A House vote seems likely late this week, shortly before Congress begins a two-week spring recess, but what will happen in the Senate is less clear.
On Saturday, all 12 Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee released a letter suggesting they might oppose the plan unless House leaders change it.
They said a package extending the children’s health program “would go a long way to achieving bipartisan support,” but listed other concerns like its increased costs for some beneficiaries.
Citing the plan’s increased Medicare premiums for high earners and other increased costs for beneficiaries, AARP — the senior citizens’ lobby — said the package “is not a balanced deal for older Americans.” With most of the measure financed with deeper federal deficits, the conservative Club for Growth urged lawmakers to vote “no” because it “falls woefully short” of being paid for.
At its core, the plan would block a 21 percent cut in doctors’ Medicare fees looming April 1. It would replace a 1997 law that has threatened similar reductions for years with a new formula aimed at prodding doctors to charge Medicare patients for the quality, not quantity, of care.
It would cost roughly $210 billion over a decade, with around $140 billion financed by adding to federal deficits, aides said Friday. The remaining $70 billion would be split about evenly between Medicare providers and beneficiaries.
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