More anger over Kentucky Sen. Bunning's delay of spending bill

 

Add doctors and satellite TV viewers to the list of people who will be angered by Sen. Jim Bunning’s foot-stomping over a package of spending extensions pending in the Senate.

The Kentucky Republican is blocking a vote on the bill, which would also extend unemployment benefits and the COBRA subsidies that help laid-off workers keep their health insurance. This unusual turn of events (the bill in question has been in the works for some time and was considered a sure thing for passage) has brought to fruition a looming — but widely considered unlikely — pay cut that doctors have been screaming about for years.

That cut had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, but it was postponed by Congress late last year under the assumption that a longer-term, or even permanent, solution would be passed before the end of this month.

The American Medical Assn. is not happy. In a statement, AMA President J. James Rohack called on the Senate to “stop playing games” and making patients “the collateral damage of their procedural games.”

Under an arcane formula that dates to 1998, physician payments under Medicare are automatically reduced when spending outpaces GDP growth in a given year. Since 2003, Congress has legislatively intervened to prevent the cuts — as happened in December when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stuck a temporary two-month fix into an unrelated spending bill. The practice of ignoring the cuts (nicknamed the “doc fix”) has become commonplace – but also a source of controversy over the AMA's role in the healthcare debate.

The issue came to a head in October, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to push through a bill that would...

...put a permanent end to those cuts — which at a few percentage points per year had compounded to a whopping 21%.

That was an embarrassing moment for Reid and the AMA. The bill was blocked by Republicans and some Democrats, who objected to its nearly $250-billion price tag. Reid implied that the AMA had wrongly assured him there were enough GOP votes for passage.

Ultimately, the issue was left unsolved. But nobody thought the cuts would ever materialize. Thanks to Bunning, the unthinkable has happened.

And a resolution could be many days away. Perhaps more unthinkable to those outside Washington is what the Bunning stunt could mean for some rural satellite TV viewers. As of Monday, those customers could find their TV screens blank because the program that allows delivery of their pictures will also lapse.

Sadly for both constituencies, there was nothing that could be done late last week. It takes just one objecting senator to stall a vote on a bill. Such an action can be overcome through cloture. But that parliamentary procedure spans multiple days and requires senators to be present, not en route to their home states, as many were Friday.

The bill is now essentially dead. And the AMA, a powerful Washington force that had thrown its support behind the Democrats’ healthcare agenda, is angry. In his statement, Rohack said the cut could force “many physicians to limit the number of Medicare and TRICARE patients they see in order to keep their practice doors open."

On Monday, Reid will bring up a new bill to provide longer-term extensions, and some extra spending like Medicaid help for states. Depending on how that process goes, the doc cuts — and the TV snow — could go unsolved for some time.

— Kim Geiger

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Photo: Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

Comments

[Jeb Bush / Lez Cheney 2012]

During Obama's failed Presidency
The record of the Obama years in office:
Worst Terrorist attack in American History (Xmas day Detroit bomber) CPAC -> Dick Cheney
Implementing Communist Economic Policies -> Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Fox News
Muslim, born in Kenya -> Lou Dobbs, CNN, MSNBC
Bailing out lazy, shiftless Detroit autoworkers
Penalizing hard working Wall Street Bankers (Bonus Taxes)
Attacking poor, hapless Japanese managers at Toyota for the sloppy, crap work of their american workers -> Senator Shelby

Now a failed HealthCare Summit... So we'll get OBamaCare with it's Medical Death Panels and big jumps in our health care premiums, and a Government takeover of Medicare...

It is clear that Hussien needs to be removed by the Military and then the Supreme Court can appoint Jeb Bush President (circa 2000). Jeb is a family values guy, so we expect him to make Lez Cheney his VP, where she will fight to keep the Gays out of the Military!

Contact your Congressman, do not allow the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy to expire, it's that important! Even if your homeless or lost your home - buck up and borrow a cell from someone to make this important call!

[Bill]

Obama wanted a pay-as-you-go system, did he not? So Bunning is just following PAYGO. Why would anyone be mad at that?

[letzberite]

Good Try - blaming KY's Bunning for failure of the bill that furloughed govt. highway workers, suspended "arcane limits" to doctors' medicare reimbursements that exceed the GDP (that was tongue-in-cheek, right?), potentially suspended satellite TV in some rural areas and suspended another extension for unemployment insurance benefits.

Blame, instead, the sneaky lawmakers who clumped these unrelated, three which are highly controversial, issues into one whopping piece of legislation that will drive the U.S. into $10 billion additional debt and failed despite another forced "gotta do it, now" deadline. Do you know what else it was supposed to pay for? I don't have the full list, either.

Blame Congress and the WH for not reversing past legislative environmental and OSHA restrictions that have forced production of goods/jobs to leave the US and ultimately makes that protective oversight moot,as well, resulting in record unemployment of over a million previously productive taxpayers in our USA.

We gotta buy Made in the USA and tell our Congress to get to work now to use Good Sense solutions to get America back to work and get it growing again using good ole American ingenuity and heart to help this world be a better place.

[Reform Cobra Now]

More delays to play politics fail to help either side. It's clear that the unemployment extension is favored by both Republins and Democrats. The folks in Washington need to stop bickering and do their jobs.

[vegasgirl]

Attention, Kentucky: Really hope you're proud of this mentally unstable, vindictive, crass individual you foisted on us for far too many years.
Please do better next time, will you?

[will]

I'm very proud of Bunning for putting the brakes on unbudgeted spending. America can't just whip out its "credit card" and keep paying for all this stuff. A little pain know might just save the country from a total economic collapse.

And it will collapse if the American people and Congress don't change their attitudes towards spending.

So yeah, a few thousand workers are furloughed and a million people don't get the extended unemployment benefits that they really weren't entitled to in the first place (the system and payments made into unemployment were designed around a 12 month payout, not 18 months, with a 6 month freebie funded by tax payers).

It sure beats a collapsed economy where no one gets welfare checks, social security checks are completely gone, no one has medicare, Federal highways are no longer maintained at all, the US military is forced to withdraw from around the globe because we can't pay for it, etc., etc.

There is alot more at risk by the irresponsible Americans who want to spend money we don't have, hand over fist.

Congress should not be allowed to spend more than it receives in taxes. Period. That should be the only law Congress should be trying to pass. After it gets past, then maybe we can start getting this country back on the right track.

[American]

How about blame no one. It is this man's right and even duty to delay this if it is what he feels is best for his state. Just because it will hurt some doesn't mean he should go against the wishes of the people from his state. I would be willing to be most people in Kentucky don't want the government to keep racking up big bills.