WASHINGTON – Last night at the House Rules Committee, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter challenged the House Majority’s 51^st attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Instead of moving forward with a bipartisan agreement to permanently repeal a pay cut for doctors who accept Medicare patients – also known as the “doc fix” or sustainable growth rate (SGR) – House Republican Leaders attached a “poison pill” amendment to the bill that would pay for the “doc fix” by taking funds away from the Affordable Care Act.

“This is certainly not the same bill, because with the pay-for attached to it makes it entirely different.  That’s what you’re holding hostage – the hostage part of it is this pay-for, which makes absolutely no sense, and is just the 51^st vote to try to kill health care, and it’s not going anywhere. Don’t you get tired of that sometimes?” Slaughter asked Rules Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions. “Is that a question for me? No, ma’am, I’m not going to get tired of it,” Sessions responded. Slaughter continued: “The fact that every week we pass two or three bills in here like those today that we know aren’t going anywhere – wouldn’t you like to do something better with your time?”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the original “doc fix” bill without a pay-for unanimously, and after months of negotiations, House and Senate leaders from both parties reached an agreement last month. Last night, however, the Rules Committee brought up the legislation and the Majority attached a self-executing amendment that would take funding away from the Affordable Care Act to pay for the “doc fix” bill. Republicans then reported the bill under a closed rule, which means that no member can amend the bill on the floor. In summary, House Republicans took a bipartisan, bicameral agreement, slapped a partisan poison pill amendment onto it at the last minute and took away the right of Members to remove that poison pill.

“SGR is critically important. As long as I’ve been in Congress, it seems to me we’ve been trying our best to get something done. You had a piece of legislation that came out of the Energy and Commerce committee unanimously, but you don’t want everybody to be able to vote for that, and you don’t want to fix the problem, obviously, because you’ve attached to it this pay-for which is a poison pill if ever there was one, and you know it,” Slaughter said later in the meeting.

Medical groups, for whom the “doc fix” is a major priority, decried the House Majority’s attempt to scuttle the agreement. Yesterday, eleven groups representing the nation’s seniors, their doctors and their advocates sent a letter to Congressional leaders urging the House to reject the Republicans’ toxic “doc fix” bill – the GOP’s 51st vote to repeal or undermine the ACA.

From the letter:

The undersigned organizations, representing Medicare beneficiaries and providers, appreciate the bipartisan, bicameral work done to repeal the sustainable growth rate (SGR) and reform the Medicare reimbursement system… 

The current effort to link SGR reform with changes to the Affordable Care Act, however, injects partisan politics into the bi-partisan legislation.  Access to health care for the more than 50 million Americans with Medicare is a serious matter – scheduling a vote on a bill which does not have bipartisan support undermines the months of hard work done by the Committees, their staffs, and concerned stakeholders.  [3/12]

Signing the letter – AARP, Alliance for Retired Americans, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Geriatrics Society, American Osteopathic Association, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc., Families USA, Medicare Rights Center, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, and the National Council on Aging.