Obama Signs Bipartisan Bill Changing Way Medicare Pays Doctors
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Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson(WASHINGTON) — President Obama ditched the Oval Office for the Rose Garden on a beautiful Thursday afternoon to sign into law a rare bipartisan achievement: a permanent change to how Medicare pays doctors, ending years of annual fights over looming cuts to reimbursements.
With his signature at the White House picnic table, Obama blocked a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments that was set to take effect this month and had many doctors threatening to leave the program and dump patients.
The law also provides financial incentives for physicians to bill Medicare patients for their overall care, not individual office visits. It also extends for two years the Children’s Health Insurance Program for low-income kids.
“Not only does this legislation permanently fix payments to doctors, but it also improves it,” Obama said. “What it starts doing is encouraging payments based on quality and not the number of tests that are provided or the number of procedures that are applied, but whether or not people actually start feeling better. It encourages us to continue to make the health care system smarter, without denying service.”
Obama said he’d be hosting a reception for lawmakers in the coming days to celebrate the bipartisan achievement.
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