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• Advocacy Highlights

Advocacy Highlights

Senate Votes to Consider Health Reform
On November 21, following a day and a half of debate, the Senate voted 60-39 along partisan lines to invoke cloture and proceed to consideration of the combined HELP-Finance health reform bill. This procedural vote does not guarantee Senate approval of health reform, since several of the moderate Democrats who voted for cloture have already said they may not vote for passage of the bill. Substantive votes will occur after Thanksgiving.

House Passes SGR Fix
On November 19, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3961, the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act, to permanently fix the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate formula causing deep annual cuts to physician payments under Medicare. The final vote was 243 to 183, with 11 Democrats voting No, and 1 Republican, Rep. Mike Burgess (R-TX), a physician, voting Yes.

H.R. 3961 wipes away the $245 billion "debt" that has accumulated from years of postponing scheduled cuts in Medicare payments caused by the SGR formula. The bill blocks the 21.2% cut scheduled for January 1, 2010, and replaces it with a small positive adjustment while transitioning to a new payment update system that more reasonably adjusts for annual growth in Medicare costs.

APA strongly supported House passage and worked with closely with the AMA and other physician organizations to secure this most welcome victory for doctors and most particularly for Medicare patients. We still face major challenges in getting the Senate to change course and support this legislation, but today's victory is a big step forward. Thanks to all APA members who called and e-mailed their Representatives in the House.

Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill Likely to be in"Minibus" this Year
With health reform dominating its schedule this fall, Congress has yet to approve seven of the twelve annual appropriations bills. Four of these bills have been passed by both the House and the Senate and are awaiting a conference committee report, but three have not yet been passed out of the Senate, including the Labor-HHS-Education bill which funds federal agencies such as NIH, SAMHSA and CDC. While congressional aides say there have been no decisions about how the appropriations process will proceed for the rest of the year, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) says he expects Congress will opt to enact a "minibus" bill made up of no more than four of the outstanding bills in mid December. The Labor-HHS-Education bill will likely be included in the minibus package along with the other appropriations bills that have not yet been approved by the Senate. Currently, all programs funded through the Labor-HHS-Education bill are operating at FY '09 levels which actually negates the slight increases that NIH and SAMHSA were slated to receive on FY '10.