Feb 25 2010
Roll Call: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Republicans Wednesday after the GOP denied "a unanimous consent request to pass an extension of unemployment insurance and COBRA health care benefits, a move he warned would leave 'out-of-work Americans vulnerable to losing this valuable safety net'" (Brady, 2/24).
CQ HealthBeat reports that Senate Democrats also don't yet have unanimous consent in the Senate for a measure that would delay Medicare rate cuts for a month. The cuts to doctors' pay are slated to begin March 1. A Reid spokeswoman said the effort to come to an agreement continues though Republicans are upset, saying Democrats are trying to exempt a big part of the fix from pay-as-you-go budgeting rules. The measure would also block a cap on Medicare payment for outpatient rehab services (Reichard, 2/24).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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