From: "Nick Meyers" <nmeyers@...>
Date: June 24, 2008 7:37:56 PM EDT
To: "Hind Benjelloun" <hbenjelloun@...>
Subject: House Passes Medicare Bill Ending 50% Coinsurance
Reply-To: "Nick Meyers" <nmeyers@...>

TO:   Board of Trustees 
        Assembly Executive Committee 
        APAPAC Board 
        Council on Advocacy and Public Policy 
        Committee on Government Relations 
        Committee on Public Affairs 
        Committee on Advocacy and Litigation Funding 
    
FR: Nick Meyers, Director of Government Relations

RE: APA Members, Patients Score Big Win as House Passes
Medicare Bill Ending 50% Coinsurance


I am delighted to let you know that – thanks to the outpouring of support from the APA leadership and membership – a short while ago, the House voted to suspend the rules and approve H.R. 6331, the Rangel-Dingell Medicare bill. As you know, this bill postpones the reduction in the fee schedule to 2010, provides a 0.5% update for the rest of 2008, and increases the update to 1.1% in 2009. The legislation also includes a temporary bump for psychotherapy codes to offset some of the reductions that have occurred recently. The final vote was an overwhelming bipartisan victory of 355-59, with 129 Republicans joining 226 Democrats to vote for passage. No Democrats voted against passage.

The bill also includes APA's long-lobbied Medicare beneficiary improvements for mental health care. As approved by the House, H.R. 6331: 

- Phases out of the Medicare 50% coinsurance required for outpatient mental health care 

- Requires coverage of benzodiazepines and barbiturates under Medicare Part D 

- Includes new compromise language to protect the ability of medically vulnerable patients to all-or-substantially-all of the medications they need for treatment (such as antipsychotics and antidepressants)

This big win highlights the importance of APA member grassroots activism, since the House GOP leadership had pulled out all the stops to deny the two-thirds vote required for passage of a bill on the so-called “Suspension Calendar.” As soon as voting on passage began, a block of roughly 50 Republicans immediately voted Yes, signaling to the GOP leadership that they could not hold on to the votes that they needed. As a result the GOP leadership released the rest of their members to vote as they wished, producing the victory. One of our long-time House GOP allies told us that the heavy pressure from physicians was directly responsible for the win.


In addition to blast faxing Dr. Stotland’s letter of support for H.R. 6331 to all House offices, DGR staff specifically targeted Republican cosponsors of the House parity bill to emphasize the importance of the Medicare mental health language. The result speaks for itself as 35 of 38 House GOP parity cosponsors voted for passage of the Medicare bill.

Just moments ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the Senate would take up H.R. 6331 rather than the stripped down compromise expected earlier. This is welcome news, since it means that there is a fighting chance to push the Medicare mental health improvements through the Senate and ultimately into law. This means we will have to redouble our efforts to find more Senate Republicans who will vote for passage of H.R. 6331. To that end, we will soon be issuing Action Alerts targeted to APA members in states with key GOP Senate swing votes. In the meantime, however, I wanted to make sure you could savor this most significant House victory for APA members and their patients.

Thank you for your personal efforts to secure this big win, and for your continued support.



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