With pressure on Senators from the American Medical Association as well as TRICARE and the re-election status for Senators, the Senate passed HR 6331, legislation that includes a 14-day reimbursement cycle for Medicare Part D claims, a further delay in AMP-based Medicaid generic drug reimbursement cuts, and suspension of the Medicare DME competitive bidding program. The cloture vote was 69 to 30. Sixty votes were required to move to final passage of the measure, whose main focus has been on preventing a 10.6% cut Medicare payments to physicians. Two previous attempts failed in the Senate last month. The House passed the bill with a cloture vote of 355-59 on June 24th. This bill will very shortly move to the President’s desk for signature.
Senate Democrats reminded members every chance they could that Medicare physician payment cuts will not just jeopardize seniors health care, but that of the nations troops and veterans. Military Officers Association of America on Tuesday sent 14,000 emails to their senators reminding them off this, since TRICARE rates are linked to Medicare rates by law.
Please send Senator Baucus a sincere thank you for all the hard work he has done to preserve the future of pharmacy and a thank you to Senator Tester as well for his strong support of pharmacy by supporting all our bills and vote for HR 6331.
In addition, if you hadn’t sent a thank you to Congressman Rehberg on voting for HR 6331, please do so. Representative contact information on http://www.grizrph.com/.
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