Today in Washington D. C. - July 9, 2008

On The Senate Floor: FISA: Senate resumed consideration of the compromise FISA reform bill (H.R. 6304). After around an hour of debate on the bill, the Senate will proceed to a series of five votes. The first three will be on amendments to the bill. The first is from Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) and would strip from the bill the critical provision granting immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that acted in good faith cooperating with terror surveillance. Two other amendments, one from Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and one from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), would weaken the immunity provision enough to jeopardize passage of the bill. The White House has said that Congress should not pass any amendments to the bill. After the amendments are voted on, the Senate will vote on cloture and then final passage of the FISA bill.

Medicare/ TRICARE: A little more than a week ago, the Senate failed to pass a Medicare fix (H.R. 6331) by a single vote (59 to 39, when 60 votes were required). This was particularly frustrating since the House previously passed the fix by an overwhelming margin. As a result, a 10.6% cut in Medicare payments to doctors went into effect July 1.

Medicare has suspended action on claims until July 15 in hopes that a new law preventing the cuts can be passed by then. If that doesn't happen, the cuts will take effect, and many doctors have said they'll stop taking Medicare and TRICARE (retired military and disabled veterans) patients (TRICARE payments are tied to Medicare's). Retired military and civilians may find their doctors refusing care under Medicare and TRICARE (which affects retired and disabled veterans). Contact your senators! Urge that they vote FOR HR 6331 if it does comes up for a vote in the Senate. It is essential that Congress act before July 15 to prevent a 10.6% cut in Medicare payments and restore speech and physical therapy coverage to hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries who lost it as of July 1.

The Senate was scheduled for a new vote on the Medicare bill today. Reid has scheduled a re-vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Democrats’ Medicare payments bill (H.R. 6331), which cuts Medicare Advantage programs.

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