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Related sites House Ways and Means Committee The Health Care Financing Administration's Medicare Web site |
Campaign afoot to restore billions in provider fees
Posted
11-1-99 Washington. Congress last week moved a step closer to restoring $15 billion in healthcare provider fees previously cut from the Medicare budget. The five-year plan to increase payments to nurses, physicians, and other providers is opposed by President Clinton, who fears the relief package would overburden Medicare's trust fund. The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee approved similar versions of the legislation Oct. 22, but failed to earmark any offset savings. House Ways and Means Chairperson Bill Archer, R-Texas, said new savings are not needed because the $15 billion in additional Medicare fee payments comes from funds saved in excess of what lawmakers expected when they approved Medicare cuts in their 1997 deal to balance the federal budget. "This bill has already been paid for by the overzealous cuts of the balanced budget act," Archer said. The measure, authored by Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., would give cash to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and others who complain they now get too little to care for the elderly and disabled. If approved by the full House and Senate, the package would give $1.5 billion to home health agencies by delaying a planned 15 percent payment reduction, and $800 million to rural hospitals to offset costs such as laboratory tests and the hiring of physician residents. Additional fees would help skilled nursing facilities pay for more rehabilitation therapy, prosthetic devices, chemotherapy drugs, and ambulance services. But Clinton administration officials said the legislation could push forward-by as much as a year-the date in 2015 when Medicare's trust fund is expected to become insolvent. Despite Clinton's opposition, support for the relief package is widely shared by Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. A vote on the measure before the full House is likely before the end of the year.
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