House

Providers will be among the interested stakeholders watching closely for signs whether the Senate will follow the House's lead and vote to repeal the CLASS Act. Many observers believe the Democrat-led Senate will not, but there has been at least a minor shift in momentum for it recently. Various news reports have detailed what it could mean to have the dormant measure still on the books, and fiscal conservatives don't like it. Meanwhile, proponents of the first-ever government long-term care benefit continue to press their opponents with the question: If not CLASS, then what?

Long-term care providers and other caregivers — as well as significant other groups of people around the country — will be anxiously watching to see if the Senate and the House can get together on compromise funding legislation before the end of the year. At risk with the dawning of 2012 will be major funding cutbacks to Medicare doctors, expiration of the Medicare therapy exceptions process, among other items. An impasse was created after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a package that included a two-month extension to payroll tax cuts last weekend, but then the Republican-led House voted down the same measure. Millions of people will be affected one way or another.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has instructed claims contractors to withhold physician payment claims for the first 10 days of 2012, citing Congress' inability to address the "doc fix."

Provider groups were anxiously awaiting a vote that is expected to be held Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives. The balloting could determine the short-term fate of Medicare spending for the "doc fix" and an extension to the therapy caps exception process.

More than 400 organizations and companies have sent letters to House and Senate leaders asking for the repeal of a 2.3% medical device excise tax. The tax is scheduled to begin in 2013. If enacted, it would cost vendors more than $2.7 billion each year, letters warn.

Republican House members convened a private conference call Tuesday to talk about ways to reshape the Medicare reform discussion, Congressional aides told Reuters.

Voting along party lines, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed fiscal year 2012 budget Friday.

A bipartisan group of House and Senate members have proposed legislation that would ensure that seniors have access to skilled nursing care after being hospitalized for observation.

Now that House Democrats, the dominant party in that chamber, have issued their proposal for healthcare reform, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office will put a price tag on it. The full House then could vote on the measure by the end of next week.

As fallout from the House healthcare reform plan continued to rain down Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed its own reform proposal.

The U.S. House of Representatives officially released its version of healthcare reform legislation Tuesday. And, as requested by President Obama, the reform package should come to a vote by the August recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.