WASHINGTON - February 6 - U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Susan
Collins (R-ME) have introduced the Rural Medicare Equity Act of 2007
to address Medicare's discrimination against rural America’s seniors
and health care providers. The legislation will change some of the inequitable
payments that harm rural communities and provide rural areas the help
they need to grow crucial health information technology infrastructures.
It also offers incentives to help attract the nation’s top medical
talent to underserved rural areas and mandates rural representation
on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that is proportional to
the nation’s number of rural Medicare beneficiaries.
“It is time to change Medicare to ensure fairness for rural
states like Wisconsin,” Feingold said. “Rural Wisconsinites
and all Americans living in rural areas have worked hard and paid
into the Medicare program all their lives and deserve full access
to the benefits that Medicare provides.”
“Medicare’s reimbursement systems have historically tended
to favor urban areas and failed to take the special needs of rural
states like Maine into account. This simply is not fair. The people
of Maine pay the same payroll taxes to Medicare, and our seniors pay
the same premiums, deductibles and copayments as Medicare beneficiaries
in other parts of the country,” Collins said. “The legislation
we are introducing today will help to reduce these inequities and
promote fairness in Medicare spending.”
Almost one-quarter of Medicare beneficiaries currently resides in
rural areas, where both geographic isolation and the scarcity of health
care providers are serious barriers to accessing care. In these areas,
physicians are paid at lower rates compared to their urban counterparts,
hospitals have a more difficult time recruiting staff, and health
information technology adoption lags. The Rural Medicare Equity Act
of 2007 will address some of the systemic inequities that exist within
the Medicare program to improve access and quality for rural Medicare
beneficiaries.
The Rural Medicare Equity Act of 2007 would:
Create fairer reimbursement for rural physicians through elimination
of the geographic practice cost index (GPCI) for work.
Take a first step to reform the unfair Medicare formulas for physicians
by requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to examine data
reform for the practice expense GPCI.
Create a demonstration project to help rural hospitals to host educators
and clinical practitioners in clinical rotations.
Create a demonstration project to allow for health information technology
improvements in rural areas.
Require that the proportion of MedPAC members representing rural interests
be no less than proportion of Medicare beneficiaries residing in rural
areas.
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