Congress Passes Medicare Ambulance Relief

[Medibart 55]

Below is a memo from the American Ambulance Association. It announces the passing of legislation that will increase Medicare payouts for ambulance transport by 2-3%. Not much of an increase but it's something.

If you work in EMS, this legislation could directly impact you and your agency. You'll be happy to know that the Congessional delegations of NY, CT and NJ nearly unanimously supported the legislation. The only exceptions were Reps. Garrett of Northern NJ and Frelinghuysen of Central NJ (both R).

I urge everyone to contact their local Congresspersons and thank them for their support of this legislation and if you live in Reps. Garrett or Frelinghuysen's districts, let them know of your displeasure.

July 10, 2008

MEMBER ALERT

TO: AAA Membership

FROM: Jim McPartlon, AAA President

RE: Senate Passes Medicare Ambulance Relief

Late yesterday afternoon, the U.S. Senate passed a physician fix package which includes Medicare relief for urban and rural ambulance services!

The package, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 6331), contains an 18-month Medicare increase of 2% urban and 3% rural for ambulance service providers. This relief would begin retroactively on July 1 of this year and result in approximately $170 million in desperately-needed Medicare relief for ambulance services. H.R. 6331, which passed both chambers by a veto-proof margin, now goes to the President who has stated in the past that he will veto the legislation.

The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act passed the Senate under unanimous consent after the procedural vote for cloture was invoked by a vote of 69 to 30 with Senator McCain not present. In the end, 18 Republicans, 2 Independents and all 49 Democrats voted in favor of cloture which is two more than the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto. To determine how your Senators voted, please go to http://www.senate.gov/ and click on "votes" in the beige area on the right side of the webpage.

The House had passed H.R. 6331 on June 24 by a vote of 355 to 59 with 20 Representatives not voting. Over four-fifths of the House voted in favor of passage of the bill and only two-thirds is needed to override a presidential veto. To determine how your Representative(s) voted, please go to http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll443.xml

.

While the fight for Medicare ambulance relief isn't likely over yet, we can all take pride in that the House and Senate both passed legislation that contained Medicare ambulance relief. This is a direct result of letters and phone calls to members of Congress from AAA member organizations, state ambulance associations and our colleagues in support of the Medicare Ambulance Payment Extension Act (S. 1310, H.R. 2164) and Medicare ambulance relief. Although we did not reach the full 5% increase from S. 1310 and H.R. 2164, we achieved an enormous goal and will continue to advocate for additional Medicare reimbursement. I thank everyone who helped get us this far.

I want to also recognize the enormous effort put forth by our champions in Congress. Senators Charles Schumer and Kent Conrad and Representatives Mike McNulty, Tom Reynolds, Tom Allen, Chip Pickering and Phil English all helped champion this cause in addition to numerous other members of Congress. After the President eventually signs the legislation into law, we will be providing draft letters for AAA member contacts to thank their members of Congress.

Again, thank you and we will keep you posted as to whether the President vetoes the bill. We may need to do one last Call To Action to ensure that members of Congress support a veto override. This would likely occur in the next week if not sooner.

[Guest]

All demos voted for it and mccain wasn't even in attendance....interesting

it's nothing to make a party over, but a small step in the right direstion.

[Medibart 55]

This bill was vetoed by the President. Both Houses voted to override the veto. Reps. Garrett and Frelinghuysen from NJ who had previously voted against the measure, voted to override. So NY, NJ and CT's Congressional delegations universally voted to override Pres. Bush's veto.

[NWFDMedic 58]

Thanks for the info Scott. As you know, the 2 or 3% does very very little to help the increased operational costs, but every little bit helps. I'm sure all commercial agencies are feeling the pressure right now and I know providers are struggling to make ends meet too.

[JetPhoto 626]

Thanks for the info