Republicans Reach for Redemption on Medicare “Doc Fix”
Politico reports that Congressional Republicans might be having second thoughts about the extremely flawed, so-called Medicare “doc fix” legislation that they sent to President Obama a few days ago. One of those flaws was that the spending in the bill was not offset by cuts to other federal spending – which is why almost every Democrat in Congress voted for it too.
Well, they appear to be getting the message that NCPA has been sending them since March 25:
…… one GOP source said negotiators had resolved a sticking point over how to offset a recently enacted bipartisan Medicare overhaul that was not entirely paid for. The source said the agreement is likely to offset the overhaul, often called the “doc fix,” starting next year.
Better late than never. How they will get President Obama to sign any bill that offsets spending that was already committed by his signature on March 15 is unclear. (All they had to do in the original bill was remove two short sentences that exempted the spending from the so-called PAYGO scorecards. Had they done so, they would not have to worry about it today.)
