House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is downplaying any distance between House and Senate Democrats over legislation preventing a steep cut in physician payments under Medicare.
{mosads}Behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a number of Democrats in the upper chamber are balking at the sweeping bipartisan package over concerns that it entrenches a ban on federal abortion funding, known as the Hyde Amendment, which Democrats in both chambers have long-fought to repeal.
Speaking to reporters just an hour before the House passed the legislation Thursday, Pelosi emphasized her opposition to the amendment, but was also quick to note that Congress has made it a mainstay of the appropriations process for more than 35 years. The House package, she argued, accepts that political reality without doing anything to make the temporary ban longer lasting.
“We really don’t have a difference of opinion. We would like to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, but the Hyde Amendment has been part of community health centers legislation since 1979, since the Hyde amendment existed,” Pelosi said.
“I understand the concerns that people have … [but] there’s nothing new in this legislation about it — not to be confused with what happened on the Senate side, which was language attached in a way that would codify, make it law, and that is something that we’re all against.”
Pelosi had joined forces with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in January to launch talks on a long-term fix to the perennial threat of Medicare physician cuts dictated by an 18-year-old formula known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR).
The $200 billion package also includes $5.6 billion for a two-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and $7.2 billion for community health centers.
The House passed the package easily Thursday, by a vote of 392-37, but approval is less certain in the Senate where Reid and a number of Democrats — backed by Planned Parenthood — are resisting.
Pelosi said she’s hopeful that strong support in the House would nudge senators to get on board, but the Senate’s strategy remains unclear as the upper chamber is bogged down in a long-draw debate over the budget and the Easter recess is looming just a day away.
Without congressional action, physicians treating Medicare patients face a 21 percent cut on April 1.
“I hope that we have a big strong vote here today, and that will encourage the Senate to take up the bill as soon as possible so that our work will be done before the deadline [of] March 31,” Pelosi said.
Adding to the pressure on Senate Democrats, President Obama on Wednesday endorsed the House package.
Pelosi said she has no concerns that the House has not also taken up a short-term SGR patch in the event the Senate fails to pass the House bill before lawmakers leave for a long Easter recess and the pay cut goes into effect as scheduled.
“We’re confident. This is a good product,” she said.
Pelosi declined to comment on her discussions with Reid, saying only that she talks to the minority leader “quite a bit about a variety of subjects.” But she predicted that Senate Democrats will ultimately come around to support the package this week.
“This bill shouldn’t take a long time to take up. Without going into what I think are the various options on the Senate side, I think it’s possible for us to get this done this week,” Pelosi said. “I believe this will move, not because anybody’s told me it will, but just because of the quality of the package, how well-crafted it is.”