WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Tuesday evening passed and sent to President Barack Obama legislation to avert a pay cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients, just hours before reductions would start affecting physicians.
The Senate voted 92-8 in favor of the measure after rejecting amendments that would have required additional House action. Republican Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton of Arkansas voted in favor of the bill.
"The reductions in doctors' reimbursement would take effect at midnight tonight, so I think there's a bipartisan desire to move forward," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday before the measure passed.
Afterward, in a statement he termed the bill "a sensible compromise."
The measure marks a rare bipartisan agreement for Congress, which has suffered from low public approval ratings after gridlock and a partial government shutdown in 2013. The House passed the legislation 392-37 on March 26.
"This is great. Let's do more of this," Obama said after the House vote last month. The president has promised to sign the bill.
The measure replaces the Medicare formula for physician payments in place since 1997 and eliminates an annual headache for Congress. Lawmakers have voted 17 times since 2002 to stop an existing Medicare cost-containment plan from cutting the pay of doctors who participate in the health care program for the elderly.
Medicare is projected to cost $622 billion in fiscal 2015.
The American Medical Association, the largest U.S. doctors' organization, has lobbied annually to head off the pay cuts. The 1997 formula would have cut doctors' pay by 21 percent beginning today.
The measure passed Tuesday also would extend the Children's Health Insurance Program for two years past its current Sept. 30 expiration.
House votes on the Medicare bill and the chamber's fiscal 2016 budget marked a turnaround from earlier disputes among Republicans that almost led the Department of Homeland Security to shut down and forced House Speaker John Boehner to pull some bills for lack of support.
Democrats supported the Medicare measure because they see it as delivering benefits to low-income senior citizens, children and families. They said it would help low-income senior citizens pay their Medicare Part-B premiums, add $750 million for training nurses and doctors, and secure money for community health centers and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The bill would provide doctors with annual 0.5 percent pay raises for five years. After that, rates would be frozen for five years, and physicians would be asked to participate in programs that pay bonuses for performing well in quality-of-care tests.
Starting in 2026, physicians' base Medicare pay would again rise by at least a quarter of a percentage point per year.
Conservatives were unhappy that two-thirds of the bill's estimated $214 billion, 10-year costs were financed by simply making federal deficits even bigger, but McConnell defended the measure.
"It's another reminder of a new Republican Congress that's back to work," he said after the vote. "And while no bill will ever be perfect, this legislation is a sensible compromise with wide bipartisan support."
Top Democrats also expressed support for the legislation.
"Tonight is a milestone for the Medicare program, a lifeline for millions of people," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
While Democrats touted the legislation's added funds for children and the poor, Republicans were claiming victory in changes the bill makes in Medicare that would have a long-term, though modest, effect on the program's finances.
While $141 billion of the measure's costs over the decade would come from added federal red ink, about $35 billion would come from Medicare beneficiaries, mostly by raising the medical and prescription drug premiums paid by some upper-income recipients starting in 2018. The affected beneficiaries already pay higher premiums than lower-earning people.
The bill also would raise another $37 billion by cutting Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and other providers.
Before passage, senators rejected six amendments, three from each party.
One Democratic proposal to extend the two years of extra money the measure provided for the Children's Health Insurance Program to four years lost on a 50-50 vote -- short of the 60 votes needed to prevail.
By 58-42, the chamber also rejected an effort by conservatives to force Congress to find enough savings to pay for the entire measure without increasing federal red ink.
Information for this article was contributed by Kathleen Hunter, Alex Wayne, Billy House, James Rowley and Kathleen Miller of Bloomberg News; and by Alan Fram of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/15/2015