The US Senate voted down Medicare legislation that would have postponed the 10.6% reduction in physician reimbursement rates scheduled for July 1st, 2008. This represents a blow to physicians who accept Medicare patients, and to Medicare beneficiaries, who will find that more physicians will be opting out of Medicare rather than accept the reduced reimbursement rates, which are scheduled for continued reductions over the next few years.

Unfortunately, Congress appears to be unable to process a simple piece of legislation to fix a single problem but instead insists on turning almost every bill into a laundry list containing a provision for everyone’s pet idea, guaranteeing that nobody will be happy with the resulting bill that comes up for a vote.

The vote in the Senate was 58-40 against the legislation. Senate Democrats are blaming Republicans for blocking the bill, which contained a laundry list of 96 changes to Medicare.

You can see a summary of the bill at the Senate web site. You can find your Senators and their contact information using the search feature located on the top right corner of the Senate.gov home page.