Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today said he was very disappointed that legislation that would have prevented a scheduled 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians and makes some significant improvements to the Medicare program was blocked from consideration. The bill, which Bingaman cosponsored, needed 60 votes to be brought up for consideration; it received just 54.

The physician cuts were scheduled to occur on January 1, 2008, but Congress passed a temporary delay through the end of this month. The bill not only would have prevented any cuts in Medicare reimbursements for 18 months, it also would have provided a 1.1 percent increase in reimbursements payments to physicians and bonuses for doctors serving rural communities.

“Millions of seniors and disabled Americans rely solely on Medicare for their health care. It is important to ensure we are paying doctors fairly for the services they provide, so that they do not have to turn Medicare recipients away,” Bingaman said. “Unfortunately, we were blocked from even bringing this bill up for consideration.”

At Bingaman’s urging, the measure included provisions that would have significantly improved assistance for low-income Americans in meeting their Medicare cost-sharing requirements. Bingaman pressed to include the proposals to make it easier for seniors to qualify for help in paying their prescription drug premiums, lowering the income threshold that determines which low-income seniors qualify for cost-sharing assistance and other similar benefits, and significantly expands initiatives that reach out to and enroll seniors in Medicare low-income programs.

“Seniors often have to spend a significant amount of money on Medicare cost sharing requirements. Most low-income seniors are not receiving the assistance with these costs available to them. We need to make sure that the low-income seniors know about and can qualify for these low-income programs, and this bill helps us achieve that goal,” Bingaman said.

The bill also contained $100 million to help pay for health care provided to Medicare recipients at Community Health Centers, bolster payments to rural Medicare providers, improves Medicare chronic care services, and makes several important changes to the Medicare prescription drug program.

Bingaman is a member of the Finance Committee and helped craft this measure.