Brian Beutler reports on the consequences of the 21% cut in Medicare payments to doctors that takes effect today:
The American Medical Association warned of this last week: “A Medicare meltdown now seems certain, as the U.S. Senate has left early for the weekend, abandoning seniors, military families and baby boomers,” reads an AMA statement from Friday. “The Senate failed to repeal the Medicare physician payment formula that will cause a drastic 21 percent payment cut to physicians who care for Medicare and TRICARE patients. On Monday, the 21 percent cut goes into effect, forcing many physicians to limit the number of Medicare and TRICARE patients they see in order to keep their practice doors open.”
Before they left early for the weekend, Democrats in the Senate were trying to pass a temporary extension of the funding for these Medicare benefits, as well as for unemployment benefits and COBRA coverage for millions of unemployed Americans. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) was asking the Democrats to explain how they would pay for the temporary extension. He did not think it was a good idea to pass the extension if it was not paid for. (Former Pres. Bush had passed two tax cut packages and funded two wars without explaining where the money was coming from, and Sen. Bunning did not think it was a good idea to do that again.)
Sadly, the Democrats refused to tell him. So Sen. Bunning decided that in all good conscience he could not permit the extension to be passed, although the funding in it was needed to help Americans who had lost their jobs and could not pay for food and other essential expenses, and despite the fact that he was the only one who opposed the extension. Bunning’s fellow Republicans begged, pleaded, and cajoled, but he just would not listen to reason. The Democrats, being the majority in the Senate, could have forced Bunning to stop withholding his consent when the Democrats asked for unanimous consent to pass the extension, but whether out of malevolence or incompetence, they didn’t. And now look what’s happened as a result of the Democrats’ reluctance to physically remove Bunning from the Senate chamber or at least put several thicknesses of duct tape over his mouth:
On a conference call with reporters this afternoon Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) put it this way: “By his actions, Bunning has prevented people from receiving Unemployment, health care access, transportation projects from going forward, and Doctors who provide Medicare services from getting paid.”
Today, for the seventh time, Bunning objected to a request for unanimous consent to temporarily extend benefits. In addition to cutting doctor’s fees, his exploitation of the Senate’s filibuster rules has cost thousands of out-of-work Americans their benefits and has even put thousands of federal employees out of work.
Look, it was silly and maybe even mean of Sen. Bunning to do this, but the Republicans did everything they could to get him to change his mind, and they just could not. The Democrats, by contrast, refused to make him change his mind, and now we have a big huge mess.
This is what happens when the Democratic majority plays partisan politics.
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