WASHINGTON --- Senators today voted to defeat an amendment offered by Senator Chuck Grassley to get rid of a sweetheart deal in the new health care law that gives five rural states better treatment than every other rural state, including Iowa. Grassley’s amendment would have used money now obligated to the special deal and improved Medicare payments to physicians in all rural states this year and next.
Grassley’s amendment also sought to make sure the Department of Health and Human Services could not undo a formula fix established by a Grassley amendment included in the final health reform bill that became law earlier this week. The Grassley provisions ensure the use of accurate data in geographic adjustments for Medicare payments to physicians and other health care professionals.
“The good news is that my formula fix is in the new law. My concern now is that a last-minute letter from the Secretary of Health and Human Services was added as a side deal to the House health care reconciliation bill and could jeopardize the fix. The Secretary’s letter says there will be a new study on geographic disparities in order to establish new data for fair treatment, but that data may or may not be good for rural states, and the study is tied to an effort to reduce Medicare spending, which is not likely to be good for rural states,” Grassley said.
Grassley’s formula fix was added to the health care legislation during Finance Committee consideration of the proposal in the Senate last September. It made the Senate bill better for rural health care than the House bill because the House bill included only a study and recommendations. It didn’t make actual improvements to the status quo for rural providers.
“These formulas need to be established in a way that is equitable and fair. They are fundamentally important to how well Medicare works, or doesn’t work, for beneficiaries in rural states,” Grassley said.
Grassley offered his amendment during Senate debate on the health-care reconciliation bill. The five states that benefit from what’s known as the frontier state deal are North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.
A number of Grassley amendments and legislative initiatives are in the health-care reform bill that became law on Tuesday. Grassley voted against the overall bill because it increased taxes and mandates on job-creating small businesses, raised taxes and fees that the Congressional Budget Office said would be passed on to consumers and result in higher health insurance premiums, failed to address reforming the Medicare physician payment sustainable growth rate formula known as the SGR and, instead, cut Medicare spending not to improve Medicare but to start an unsustainable new entitlement program, and failed to do anything about health care inflation.