Republicans Unwittingly Vote for Obamacare Improvement

On Thursday morning, the House passed by voice vote a proposal (HR 4302) to delay for 12 months a scheduled 24% cut to Medicare physician reimbursements

 the compromise measure contains a slew of additional health care provisions and benefits for physicians, hospitals, drug makers and other providers.

For example, the proposal would:

Grant Medicare physicians a 0.5% fee increase through the end of 2014;

Provide higher Medicare payments to hospitals in rural areas and for ambulance services in such areas;

Establish two new mental health grant programs, one of which would receive $60 million over four years to improve outpatient treatment for individuals with serious mental illnesses (Taylor, AP/Washington Times, 3/26);

Delay the deadline to implement the new ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure code sets by one year, to Oct. 1, 2015 (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 3/26);

Delay implementation of the new inpatient payment rule for hospitals, known as the two-midnight rule, by six months, to March 2015 (Demko, Modern Healthcare, 3/26); and

Implement $2 billion in payment reductions over 10 years to skilled nursing providers