The U.S. Congress on Tuesday voted to override President George W. Bush’s veto on a bill to protect doctors from a cut in their reimbursement rates. The override vote easily met the two-thirds requirement with the senate voting 70-26 and the House of Representatives 383-41 to nullify the president’s veto. By this override vote, the Congress rescinded an 11% reduction in government payments to about 600,000 doctors who were treating elderly Medicare patients, and the bill now becomes a law.

Supporters of the legislation felt that the scheduled 11 % pay cut for doctors would only make them not keen to take Medicare patients. President Bush said he objected to the way lawmakers would finance the plan by reducing spending on private health plans designed to help the elderly and disabled, though he supported rescinding the pay cut.  "I support the primary objective of this legislation, to forestall reductions in physician payments. Yet taking choices away from seniors to pay physicians is wrong," Bush said.

"I was disappointed by tonight’s vote to override the Presidents veto of the Medicare bill," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said."Medicare is drifting towards disaster," Leavitt said. "Congress has once again given into special interests and shown an unwillingness to change the program's path and take on the important task of entitlement reform."

He said he supports "fully reimbursing physicians at pre-reduction Medicare payment levels and we want to fix the way physicians are paid. We do not support many other provisions in the bill which will hurt both taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries. "

"We wasted no time in reversing the president's carelessness and protecting our nation's doctors and the patients they treat," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This responsible and overdue Medicare fix is now law."

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, felt the federal government spends more on Medicare Advantage patients than on comparable patients in traditional Medicare, resulting in billions of dollars in added costs yearly. "We take some of that unnecessary waste and we use it to pay physicians who are working hard and ought not to have a cut in their reimbursement rates," Doggett said.