MINNEAPOLIS, July 10, 2008—In a dramatic vote, the Senate Wednesday passed HR 6331, a bill already passed by the House, which halts an impending 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

The bill passed by a veto-proof 69-30 margin. The bill already passed the House with a bipartisan 355-59 majority.

Passage of the bill is a victory for physicians, seniors, and military families, all of whom depend on reasonable reimbursements to maintain access to health care services.

The successful voice vote took place just after a motion to advance the bill succeeded because some senators who had opposed the bill earlier changed sides. The same motion, made June 27, failed by a single vote.

The drama of the fight spiked when Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who recently underwent surgery for a brain tumor and was not expected to participate, walked down the Senate aisle arm in arm with Sens. Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama, John Kerry and his son Rep. Patrick Kennedy to cast an aye vote for the Medicare bill.

Minnesota Sens.  Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar voted for the bill, as they had done in the earlier effort to pass it June 27. The only senator to miss the vote was Sen. John McCain, who was campaigning in Ohio.

Who voted how

President Bush had promised to veto the bill, but the Senate's 69-30 vote to advance the bill is veto-proof.

Kennedy later issued a statement about his appearance:

"I return to the Senate today to keep a promise to our senior citizens -- and that's to protect Medicare. Win, lose or draw, I wanted to be here. I wasn't going to take the chance that my vote could make the difference."

HR 6331, in addition to halting the Medicare cuts, has important incentives for e-prescribing. The law provides positive Medicare payment incentives of up to 2 percent for practitioners who use qualified e-prescribing systems in 2009 through 2013, and a reduction in payments of up to 2 percent to providers who fail to e-prescribe by 2012.

The bill wil allow hardship exceptions for providers unable to use a qualified e-prescribing system.

The American Medical Association, which led in the grueling battle to stop the cuts, issued this statement:

“Today the American Medical Association celebrates that the Senate heard the voices of patients and physicians and voted to stop Medicare physician payment cuts that would have hurt seniors’ access to care by a bipartisan, veto-proof majority of 69 to 30.

"We especially appreciate the heroic efforts of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who made this critical vote his first after his surgery. We also applaud those senators who put patients first and voted yes even though they had concerns about the process or some of the bill’s provisions.

“Now we – along with seniors, the disabled, and military families – call on President Bush to sign this bill into law to protect access to health care for so many deserving Americans."

Across the country, state medical societies and their members furiously lobbied their senators to support HR 6331. In Texas, the political arm of the Texas Medical Association was so unhappy with Sen. John Cornyn in the wake of his vote against the bill that it revoked its reelection endorsement for him. Cornyn wound up voting for the resolution Wednesday.

In the House, California, Rep. Wally Herger (R) received such a negative barrage from physicians that, on the very day he voted against it, he wrote a letter explaining that if the law comes back in any form, he would sign it without hesitation.