Congress to vote on 10-month 'doc fix,' payroll tax deal

News outlets report that the legislation would include delaying the cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

CNN: Congress Reaches Final Payroll Tax Cut Deal
Congressional negotiators have resolved all differences on a deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits while avoiding a fee cut for Medicare doctors for the rest of the year (Barret, Cohen and Silverleib, 2/16).

Bloomberg: Payroll Tax Cut Agreement Includes Unemployment, Health Changes 
Hospitals will bear much of the cost of the bill. They will lose about $11 billion in government payments for bad debt, incurred when Medicare patients don't make co-payments and pay deductibles, and for charity care. Clinical laboratories ... will take a 2 percent Medicare payment cut in 2013, according to the congressional documents (Rubin, 2/16).

The Associated Press: Top Bargainers Announce Payroll Tax Cut Deal
The $20 billion price tag for preventing the cut in doctors' Medicare reimbursements would be covered partly by trimming a fund Obama's health care overhaul created to help prevent obesity and smoking. There would also be reductions in Medicaid payments to hospitals that treat high numbers of uninsured patients (Fram, 2/16).

The Washington Post: Congressional Leaders Back Deal On $150B Economic Package
In addition to the pension issue, [Sen. Max] Baucus and [Rep. Dave] Camp agreed to cut $5 billion from a fund created under the health-care law to help primary-care physicians prevent illness - a fund that the president singled out for a similar cut in the budget for fiscal 2013 that he announced Monday (Kane and Pershing, 2/16).

Politico Pro: Deal Unlikely To Include Physician-Owned Hospitals
The final payroll tax agreement is not expected to include a GOP-backed proposal to loosen the Affordable Care Act's restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, according to congressional and lobbyist sources ... The original House payroll tax extension bill, as passed in December, would have loosened the restrictions on physician-owned hospitals that have been in place in varying forms since 2003 (Dobias and Haberkorn, 2/16).

National Journal: Congressional Negotiators Reach Payroll Deal 
The deal, such as it is, seems like less of a triumph for Congress than the mere prevention of disaster. ... it's worth remembering that this patch comes after the previous two-month patch--which came about after another standoff. A lasting accord this is not (Snell and Cooper, 2/16).

KHN summarized news coverage earlier today: Congressional Negotiators Announce 'Doc Fix,' Payroll Tax Cut Deal