Interesting
press release from the AMA.
Problem: the Republicans like private plans called Medicare Advantage plans. They're essentially privately run HMOs. Medicare pays the plans a certain amount of money to provide care to seniors. Those plans get 112 percent of what an average senior's care per Medicare. Republicans like them because free market, yada yada yada. The 2008 physician fee schedule for regular Medicare came out, and it cuts Medicare reimbursement to physicians by 10.1% (average, depends on specialty and location, some actually get a bit of a boost, but it's definitely more of a loss than a gain for physicians).
The AMA and every other specialy group (except maybe anestheiologists, like they already don't make money hand over fist...) is not particularly anxious to let the cut happen.
There was a fix in the both SCHIP bills, but they got scrapped in an effort to meet a veto proof majority in the Senate. The fix was to take some money away from the Advantage plans and redistrubute over the rest of Medicare.
'Twill be interesting to see how this plays out in an already complicated (and hotly contested) healthcare arena.
