Health highlights Friday

A quiet day after an eventful night. 

The Senate is done (for now) trying to pass a sweeping tax extenders bill after Democrats last evening failed in their third try this month to pass it. The package, which included an extension of unemployment benefits and $15 billion in emergency Medicaid funding, couldn’t get around the unified opposition of Republicans, who objected to about $33 billion in new deficit spending.  

The impasse leaves many states in a lurch, because Medicaid enrollment spikes in tough economies, precisely when states are least able to absorb the additional costs. Some states had already crafted budgets presuming the money was coming. If it doesn’t, they’ve warned Congress, they’ll be forced to fire workers and cut benefits to plug the gap. 

Across the Capitol, House leaders had a bit more success, passing a six-month “doc fix” bill last night that replaces a 21 percent pay cut to Medicare doctors with a 2.2 percent raise through November. Though the measure passed easily, 417-1, it wasn’t the majority’s first choice of bills. House Democrats had approved a 19-month pay patch in May, but Senate Republicans (along with a few centrist Democrats) rejected that proposal — which was initially a part of the extenders bill — over deficit concerns. The result: House Democrats this week spent more time blasting opponents of the larger bill than they did celebrating the success of the stand-alone doc fix. 

“It is clear,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement, “that Senate Republicans have no intention of passing any jobs legislation, whether it is tied to physician payments or not.”

The frustration was echoed by the doctors’ lobby, which has urged Congress to pass a permanent fix to the physician pay problem that’s become a perennial thorn in the side of doctors and lawmakers alike. 

There was another, less mentioned, reason that House Democrats were up in arms: To help cover the $6.4 billion cost of the six-month doc fix, Senate leaders tweaked a pension law to allow corporations to postpone contributions to their pension funds — a move hugely unpopular among labor unions. Indeed, the lone vote of dissent came from Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House labor panel, who was protesting the pension provision.  

Thursday’s House vote, which came nearly a week after CMS began processing claims that included the 21-percent cut, means the agency will have to go back and send a second round of checks updating the June claims they’ve already paid. It’s not yet clear how long that process will take. 

Neither chamber is in session Friday, but not everyone has left for the weekend. Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee (Calif.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Donna Christensen (V.I.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas) will hold a press conference at the Capitol this morning on HIV/AIDS testing. The lawmakers are all members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Also in Washington, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) will join a forum discussing long-term care. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) will tackle issues related to retirement security at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Center for American Progress hosts a forum on health insurance oversight. And the Food and Drug Administration is holding an all-day examination of ways to reduce medication errors. 

Outside the beltway, former Sen. Rick Santorum heads to Iowa today to test the waters for a presidential run in 2012. The Pennsylvania Republican has been a prominent critic of both the Democrats’ health reform law and the closed-door deals that secured its passage. “We have animal farm here.”