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Monday, July 07, 2008DME INDUSTRY RALLIES ONE MORE TIME FOR VOTE EXPECTED ON LATE TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY (Note: Due to the death and funeral of former Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), the Senate may not vote on the Medicare “doc fix” until Wednesday, July 9.) The DME industry must rally one more time by going to the phones or sending faxes to their Republican senators, urging them to support H.R. 6331, the House version of the “doc fix” that includes language to delay the competitive bidding program and to repeal the transfer of ownership for oxygen.
Go to your phones now and call! The following is a list of our Republican senators and their phone numbers in D.C. Republican Senator | State | DC Phone Number | Republican Senator | State | DC Phone Number | Alexander, Lamar | TN | (202) 224-4944 | Gregg, Judd | NH | (202) 224-3324 | Allard, Wayne | CO | (202) 224-5941 | Hagel, Chuck | NE | (202) 224-4224 | Barrasso, John | WY | (202) 224-6441 | Hatch, Orrin G | UT | (202) 224-5251 | Bennett, Robert F. | UT | (202) 224-5444 | Hutchison, Kay Bailey | TX | (202) 224-5922 | Bond, Christopher S | MO | (202) 224-5721 | Inhofe, James M | OK | (202) 224-4721 | Brownback, Sam | KS | (202) 224-6521 | Isakson, Johnny | GA | (202) 224-3643 | Bunning, Jim | KY | (202) 224-4343 | Kyl, Jon | AZ | (202) 224-4521 | Burr, Richard | NC | (202) 224-3154 | Lugar, Richard G. | IN | (202) 224-4814 | Chambliss, Saxby | GA | (202) 224-3521 | Martinez, Mel | FL | (202) 224-3041 | Coburn, Tom | OK | (202) 224-5754 | McCain, John | AZ | (202) 224-2235 | Cochran, Thad | MS | (202) 224-5054 | McConnell, Mitch | KY | (202) 224-2541 | Coleman, Norm | MN | (202) 224-5641 | Murkowski, Lisa | AK | (202) 224-6665 | Collins, Susan M | ME | (202) 224-2523 | Roberts, Pat | KS | (202) 224-4774 | Corker, Bob | TN | (202) 224-3344 | Sessions, Jeff | AL | (202) 224-4124 | Cornyn, John | TX | (202) 224-2934 | Shelby, Richard C. | AL | (202) 224-5744 | Craig, Larry E. | ID | (202) 224-2752 | Smith, Gordon H. | OR | (202) 224-3753 | Crapo, Mike | ID | (202) 224-6142 | Snowe, Olympia J. | ME | (202) 224-5344 | DeMint, Jim | SC | (202) 224-6121 | Specter, Arlen | PA | (202) 224-4254 | Dole, Elizabeth | NC | (202) 224-6342 | Stevens, Ted | AK | (202) 224-3004 | Domenici, Pete V | NM | (202) 224-6621 | Sununu, John E. | NH | (202) 224-2841 | Ensign, John | NV | (202) 224-6244 | Thune, John | SD | (202) 224-2321 | Enzi, Michael B. | WY | (202) 224-3424 | Vitter, David | LA | (202) 224-4623 | Graham, Lindsey | SC | (202) 224-5972 | Voinovich, George V. | OH | (202) 224-3353 | Grassley, Chuck | IA | (202) 224-3744 | Warner, John | VA | (202) 224-2023 | | | | Wicker, Roger F. | MS | (202) 224-6253 |
Senate Vote Summary on Cloture Vote to Proceed Consideration to H.R. 6331 Alexander (R-TN), Nay | Conrad (D-ND), Yea | Kennedy (D-MA), Not Voting | Reed (D-RI), Yea | Allard (R-CO), Nay | Corker (R-TN), Nay | Kerry (D-MA), Yea | Reid (D-NV), Nay * | Barrasso (R-WY), Nay | Cornyn (R-TX), Nay | Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea | Roberts (R-KS), Yea | Baucus (D-MT), Yea | Craig (R-ID), Nay | Kohl (D-WI), Yea | Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea | Bayh (D-IN), Yea | Crapo (R-ID), Nay | Kyl (R-AZ), Nay | Salazar (D-CO), Yea | Bennett (R-UT), Nay | DeMint (R-SC), Nay | Landrieu (D-LA), Yea | Sanders (I-VT), Yea | Biden (D-DE), Yea | Dodd (D-CT), Yea | Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea | Schumer (D-NY), Yea | Bingaman (D-NM), Yea | Dole (R-NC), Yea | Leahy (D-VT), Yea | Sessions (R-AL), Nay | Bond (R-MO), Nay | Domenici (R-NM), Nay | Levin (D-MI), Yea | Smith (R-OR), Yea | Boxer (D-CA), Yea | Dorgan (D-ND), Yea | Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea | Snowe (R-ME), Yea | Brown (D-OH), Yea | Durbin (D-IL), Yea | Lincoln (D-AR), Yea | Specter (R-PA), Nay | Brownback (R-KS), Nay | Ensign (R-NV), Nay | Lugar (R-IN), Nay | Stabenow (D-MI), Yea | Bunning (R-KY), Nay | Enzi (R-WY), Nay | Martinez (R-FL), Nay | Stevens (R-AK), Yea | Burr (R-NC), Nay | Feingold (D-WI), Yea | McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting | Sununu (R-NH), Nay | Byrd (D-WV), Yea | Feinstein (D-CA), Yea | McCaskill (D-MO), Yea | Tester (D-MT), Yea | Cantwell (D-WA), Yea | Graham (R-SC), Nay | McConnell (R-KY), Nay | Thune (R-SD), Nay | Cardin (D-MD), Yea | Gregg (R-NH), Nay | Menendez (D-NJ), Yea | Vitter (R-LA), Nay | Carper (D-DE), Yea | Hagel (R-NE), Nay | Mikulski (D-MD), Yea | Voinovich (R-OH), Yea | Casey (D-PA), Yea | Harkin (D-IA), Yea | Murkowski (R-AK), Yea | Warner (R-VA), Nay | Chambliss (R-GA), Nay | Hatch (R-UT), Nay | Murray (D-WA), Yea | Webb (D-VA), Yea | Clinton (D-NY), Yea | Hutchison (R-TX), Nay | Nelson (D-FL), Yea | Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea | Coburn (R-OK), Nay | Inhofe (R-OK), Nay | Nelson (D-NE), Yea | Wicker (R-MS), Nay | Cochran (R-MS), Nay | Inouye (D-HI), Yea | Obama (D-IL), Yea | Wyden (D-OR), Yea | Coleman (R-MN), Yea | Isakson (R-GA), Nay | Pryor (D-AR), Yea | | Collins (R-ME), Yea | Johnson (D-SD), Yea | | |
Directions on how to call your senators: o To connect to their DC offices, dial the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. (Direct numbers to your republican senators are provided above.) o To connect to their state offices, go to the VGM DC Link at www.vgmdclink.com. Scroll to the center of the page and enter your ZIP Code. Click on “GO” to take you to the next screen. From there, scroll down to the very bottom of the screen where you will see the name of your legislators. Click on your senators’ name to get the contact information to their local offices. Then… 1. Refer to the list above for your senators’ vote. 2. If they voted “YEA” (YES), a. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard and provide the operator with your state or ZIP Code. b. Once connected, ask to speak with the Health Legislative Assistant (Health LA). c. THANK your senator for his / her vote for cloture and stress your desire that he / she support H.R. 6331 when the Medicare “doc fix” bill is addressed after the July 4th Recess. d. Ask for their continued support for the competitive bidding delay and the repeal of the transfer of ownership on oxygen. e. If there is a compromised bill, ask that they support Senator Grassley’s 31-day extension bill (which includes a delay of the competitive bidding) and ensure that the competitive bidding delay and the repeal of the oxygen transfer is included in any final compromise bill. f. Ask your senator to contact CMS and the Administration IMMEDIATELY to delay the implementation of competitive bidding until Congress has had a chance to pass either HR 6331 or Grassley’s 31-day extension bill with the compromise bill. 3. If your senator voted “NAY” (NO), a. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard and provide the operator with your State or ZIP Code. b. Once connected, ask to speak with the Health Legislative Assistant (Health LA). c. Politely and respectfully express to your senator that you were not pleased with the outcome of the cloture vote, and request that he / she support H.R. 6331. Stress your concern over the need for a delay in the competitive bidding program, as well as the repeal of the transfer of ownership on oxygen equipment. d. Ask that your senator support providers and beneficiaries in any future Medicare “doc fix” bill that might pass supporting a delay to competitive bidding, as well as a repeal of the transfer of ownership on oxygen equipment that is currently in H.R. 6331. e. Ask your senator to contact CMS and the Administration IMMEDIATELY to delay the implementation of competitive bidding until Congress has had a change to pass either HR 6331 or Grassley’s 31-day extension bill with a final compromise package. Remember to remain respectful at all times. DO NOT threaten the staff or the senator in any way. At this point, we need our friends close to us, and our potential friends even closer! Reid Again Seeks Senate Passage of Restored Medicare Pay for Doctors From CQ Today, 7/7/08 By Alex Wayne, CQ Staff Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D?Nev., is expected this week to try once more to push through a controversial House Medicare bill that would restore physician reimbursement cuts. But the political rhetoric has intensified since the last vote, and the math doesn’t seem to have changed, so a high-stakes impasse over how to restore the doctor pay is likely to continue for at least a few more days. And no one seems willing to predict how the drama might end. The fight is over how to pay to reverse the 10.6 percent cuts, which were mandated by Medicare cost containment formulas and scheduled to have started July 1. But after pre-recess efforts in Congress to stop the cuts failed, the Bush administration announced it would hold doctors’ claims until July 15 in anticipation of a legislative breakthrough. Given the current stalemate, though, it’s far from clear whether anything can be enacted even by then. And the pay cuts — if they go through — could have a broad ripple effect. Many private insurers, as well as the military’s health system, Tricare, base their payments to physicians on Medicare’s rates. Doctors warn that they will drop Medicare patients if the cuts take effect. And so it has become imperative for Congress to reverse it. On that much, there’s agreement. But Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on how to pay for restoring the cuts. In scheduling another vote on the House-passed bill (HR 6331), Reid would be hoping that pressure from doctors’ groups during the recess has changed minds among Republicans who opposed the bill when it fell one vote short in the Senate on June 26. But there’s no hard evidence that any Republican minds have been changed, so a new vote seems likely to fall short of the 60 senators needed to move forward. And even if it succeeds, the bill will almost certainly not garner the backing necessary — 67 votes, if all senators are present and voting — to overcome a promised veto by President Bush. Reid, though, appears undaunted. “Senator Reid intends to give the Republicans another opportunity to do the right thing shortly after we return,” said his spokesman, Jim Manley. “Given the overwhelming margin in the House, the fact that we came within one vote in the Senate, and the pounding the Republicans have rightly taken for their decision to protect health insurance companies at the expense of patients and doctors, we are hopeful the second time will be the charm.” The bill that passed the House by a vote of 355-59 but failed in the Senate would pay for reversing the cut by trimming costs in Medicare Advantage, a program in which private insurers in place of the government provide benefits to seniors. Medicare Advantage plans have proved popular with seniors, but their aggressive marketing practices have been criticized, and government auditors say the plans are overpaid compared with traditional Medicare. Democrats argue that the plan payments should be reduced, while Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration say they are a viable competitive alternative that will eventually bring prices down. AMA Targets Bill Opponents The American Medical Association launched a television advertising campaign last week targeting 10 Senate Republicans who voted against the bill. The Texas Medical Association even revoked its endorsement of John Cornyn ’s re-election over his vote against the bill. Further, according to a Senate GOP aide, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky., asked the AMA two weeks ago to support a one-month delay of the physician fee cuts to give Congress more time to negotiate a longer-term fix. The association declined, the aide said. Reid later refused to consider a delay, insisting on a vote on the House bill or nothing. The AMA’s stance has greatly angered Republicans. “They’ve decided to play politics on behalf of the Democratic Party rather than serve their membership,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee. Two weeks ago, Grassley was extremely close to a deal on a compromise Medicare bill with his committee’s chairman, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana. But before the Senate could take it up, the House passed its bill with an overwhelming margin, changing the political dynamic of the debate. Grassley said doctors asked him about the situation at some of his public events in Iowa last week. “I’ve told them to tell their lobbyists in Washington that there’s a bill the president will sign, and that’s the Baucus-Grassley [bill], and to ask them, why are they backing a bill that the president will veto?” Grassley opposes the House bill, he says, because he believes it would limit access to Medicare Advantage plans for rural seniors — including many of his Iowa constituents. The AMA’s president, Dr. Nancy Nielsen, says that the association is responsible neither for the difficult debate over Medicare physician reimbursement nor the politics that have sprung up around it. “We are not the ones who made this partisan,” Nielsen said. “It’s the Senate that got us in this, and the Senate needs to act to get us out.” Last winter, after the Senate could not agree on legislation that would have reversed a smaller cut in physician fees, Congress passed a short-term patch that expired June 30. Nielsen said the AMA rejected another one-month delay in the cuts because it wants Congress to focus on a long-term fix. “They had six months to solve this,” Nielsen said. “What was going to happen, we were afraid, is we would be on the 29th day and we would be in the exact same position.” The fact that all of the senators the AMA is targeting in its advertisements are Republicans is because no Democrats opposed the House bill, she said. It is unclear exactly how the debate will play out this week. At some point, the Senate will vote on the House bill again. Grassley said that, assuming that the House bill fails, he hopes the Senate will then take up a bill that reflects the compromise he and Baucus were on the verge of working out. Observers believe such a bill would be narrowly focused on doctors’ pay, eliminating other provisions sought by Democrats, and would be paid for with far narrower cuts to certain kinds of Medicare Advantage programs. But Grassley stopped short of making firm predictions. “I don’t know exactly how the brinksmanship is going to be played out,” he said. He and McConnell repeated their request for a one-month delay of the fee cuts in a letter to Reid on July 3. If lawmakers cannot complete a fix until after July 15, they might pass a retroactive bill to restore payments and make up for the cuts. That would create administrative headaches for the Medicare system, but GOP aides said the difficulties may not be serious. A similar impasse in December 2005 led to physician payment rate cuts for about a month while Congress was out of town. Lawmakers passed a fix in February 2006, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reprocessed doctors’ claims from the month when rates were cut. A Baucus spokeswoman said that the senator was traveling last week and unavailable for an interview. And neither Reid’s spokesman nor Nielsen of the AMA wanted to entertain the idea of an alternative to the House bill. “I don’t want to think about what happens if it fails again,” Nielsen said. “This is deeply, deeply personal to physicians.” Democrats hit GOP on support for Medicare cuts
From The Associated Press, 7/5/08
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, accused Republicans of putting seniors and military families at risk by siding with President Bush against a measure to prevent Medicare cuts.
Durbin, D-Ill., used a Saturday national radio address to call on Republicans to back the bill to stave off a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
It passed the House overwhelmingly last week in defiance of Bush's threat to veto it, but it fell just one vote short of the 60 it needed to advance in the Senate, with most Republicans voting "no."
"It's time for the Republican senators who are filibustering this measure to put our seniors and our military families ahead of private insurance companies and let the Senate pass this bill as soon as possible," Durbin said.
Bush and Senate Republicans don't like the bill because it includes offsetting cuts to insurance companies that use Medicare money to offer private health care coverage to about 20 percent of seniors.
The lower fees to doctors went into effect July 1, but Medicare officials are holding off processing new claims, hoping that Congress will act within the next few weeks to restore the higher payments. Many health plans, including the government program covering military personnel, tie their payment rates to Medicare's.
In a letter to Democratic leaders on Thursday, Republicans called for a monthlong extension to buy time to write a bill Bush would sign.
"The millions of beneficiaries who depend on Medicare and the providers who treat them are not political pawns in a partisan game, and Congress should not treat them that way," said the letter, signed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader.
Democratic leaders intend to use the impending deadline to pressure Republicans, particularly those facing steep re-election challenges, to switch their votes or be accused of hurting seniors and others. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans a second vote on the measure as early as next week.
The Medicare bill is just one area in which Republicans and Democrats are battling over spending offsets. Democrats insist on pairing legislation to extend expiring tax cuts with tax increases elsewhere to prevent a rise in the deficit, and Republicans have steadfastly opposed such hikes.
McConnell offered to accept some tax increases if Democrats would agree to reduce spending on domestic programs.
Reid quickly rejected the proposal. In a statement, he said Republicans were choosing to "cut programs to help working families, seniors and veterans in need of health care" to protect multinational companies that would benefit from extending the tax cuts.
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