Skip to main content

House approves two-month payroll tax extension

By Stephanie Bouchard

A vote to extend the payroll tax cut and avert a 27.4 percent Medicare pay cut for physicians was approved today.

After a week of continual criticism from all quarters, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced Thursday evening that he has agreed to accept the two-month temporary deal approved by the Senate last weekend. The House and Senate passed the deal Friday morning.

[See also: House votes down Senate payroll extension compromise.]

The two-month deal keeps the payroll tax at its current 4.2 percent level instead of returning it to 6.2 percent, continues paying unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployed and avoids cutting the Medicare physician fee – but only through Feb. 29.

"With this brief reprieve from the massive 27 percent cut to Medicare payments, Congress now has to enact a real and fiscally responsible solution to this sorry cycle of scheduled cuts and short-term patches that compromises access to care for patients and drives up costs for taxpayers," said Peter Carmel, MD, president of the American Medical Association in a statement. "Members of Congress need to use this time to work in a bipartisan manner to provide long-term stability for seniors, military families and the physicians who care for them."

Follow HFN associate editor Stephanie Bouchard on Twitter @SBouchardHFN.