Excerpt
SUMMARY: For more than a decade, doctors who treat Medicare patients have been threatened with pay cuts due to a faulty formula of how doctors are reimbursed. But in a rare bipartisan agreement, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a deal to permanently end the problem and reward quality of care, not quantity. Gwen Ifill learns more from Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): In Congress today, a rare and significant bipartisan agreement. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly agreed to repair Medicare. For over a decade, doctors have faced repeated threats of pay cuts. But this new deal would permanently end the uncertainty.
Plus, it put House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in the rare position of being on the same side.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, Speaker of the House: This will be the first real entitlement reform that we have seen in nearly two decades. And that’s a big win for the American people.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, House Minority Leader: I just have confidence that the quality of what we have done, what has been crafted in the House is really a good bipartisan initiative.
GWEN IFILL: Here to explain the deal and how it would work is Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News.
Mary Agnes, there have been 17 patches, fixes, temporary fixes for this over the years. It’s not a new problem. What changed this time?
MARY AGNES CAREY, Kaiser Health News: A couple years ago, members of the House and the Senate, bipartisan member of the relevant committees, came together and decided a policy on how to move forward to pay Medicare physicians.
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