Today’s United States Senate vote for cloture on S. 1776, the Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009, failed by a vote of 47 to 53. The bill would permanently repeal the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) and would lay the foundation for establishing a new Medicare physician payment system. A cloture vote would have made the bill filibuster-proof and cleared the way for a floor vote on this critical bill. In the Senate, a three-fifths majority is required for cloture.

CMA has many serious concerns with the Senate health care legislation, one of the biggest being its failure to address long-term cuts to Medicare payments. Although the House bill does contain a physician payment fix, the Senate bill would increase doctors’ payments by 0.5 percent in 2010, but it would leave doctors facing a 25 percent cut in 2011.

S. 1776 not only would repeal the SGR formula, but also would eliminate all debt that has been accumulated under the current payment system, setting future physician payment updates at zero. Importantly, the Senate leadership made it very clear that Congress does not intend to implement a permanent physician payment freeze and call it Medicare payment reform.

Rather, by passing a separate bill that repeals the SGR and eliminates the accumulated spending target debt, budget constraints will be eased, allowing a new physician payment update system to be incorporated into a broader health system reform bill.

California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer continue their strong support for physicians and voted in favor of cloture.

However, because the legislation is not offset by other spending cuts or revenue increases it will add to the federal budget deficit, making supporting votes difficult for some senators.

Contact: Elizabeth McNeil, 415/882-3376 or emcneil@cmanet.org.