Things are moving fast. As we mentioned last week, President George W. Bush was set to veto a bill that would halt a 10.6 percent Medicare physicians pay cut. Yesterday, the president vetoed the bill, despite the bill passing both houses of Congress by veto-proof margins in recent weeks.
President Bush wrote that he vetoed the bill because it would “harm beneficiaries by taking private health plan options away from them,” and urged Congress to send him a bill “that reduces the growth in Medicare spending, increases competition and efficiency, implements principles of value-driven health care, and appropriately offsets increases in physician spending.” (Source)
The same day the president vetoed the bill, Congress overrode his veto. The measure stopped the reimbursement rate cut and will give physicians a 1.1 percent increase in 2009. (Source)
