[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 954 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 954

    To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide that 
   geographic reclassifications of hospitals from one urban area to 
  another urban area do not result in lower wage indexes in the urban 
         area in which the hospital was originally classified.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 24, 2001

 Mr. Torricelli (for himself and Mr. Corzine) introduced the following 
  bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide that 
   geographic reclassifications of hospitals from one urban area to 
  another urban area do not result in lower wage indexes in the urban 
         area in which the hospital was originally classified.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Hospital Medicare Payment Parity Act 
of 2001''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Reimbursement under the medicare program for 
        approximately 250 hospitals nationwide is decreased by 
        approximately $80,000,000 each year due to the damaging effect 
        of geographic reclassification of hospitals located in the same 
        area as such urban hospitals to other areas with a higher wage 
        indexes.
            (2) A provision to protect rural hospitals from similar 
        damaging effects already exists under the medicare program.
            (3) The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, in its March 
        2001 report to Congress, recognized these damaging effects on 
        urban hospitals and the inequity related to the existing rule 
        to protect rural hospitals when they stated that ``Congress 
        should protect urban hospitals from the adverse effect of 
        nearby hospitals being reclassified to areas with higher wage 
        indexes by computing each area's wage index as if none of the 
        hospitals located in the area had been reassigned''.

SEC. 3. APPLICATION OF WAGE INDEX FLOOR FOR HOSPITAL GEOGRAPHIC 
              RECLASSIFICATIONS FROM ONE URBAN AREA TO ANOTHER URBAN 
              AREA.

    (a) In General.--Section 1886(d)(8)(C)(ii) of the Social Security 
Act (42 U.S.C. 1395ww(d)(8)(C)(ii)) is amended--
            (1) by inserting ``(I)'' after ``(ii)''; and
            (2) by adding at the end the following new subclause:
    ``(II) If the application of subparagraph (B) or a decision of the 
Medicare Geographic Classification Review Board or the Secretary under 
paragraph (10), by treating hospitals located in one urban area as 
being located in another urban area reduces the wage index for that one 
urban area (as applied under this subsection), the Secretary shall 
calculate and apply such wage index under this subsection as if the 
hospitals so treated had not been excluded from the calculation of the 
wage index for that one urban area.''.
    (b) Waiver of Budget Neutrality.--Section 1886(d)(8)(D) of the 
Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395ww(d)(8)(D)) is amended by inserting 
before the period at the end the following: ``, except that no such 
adjustment may be made to such amounts as a result of the application 
of subparagraph (C)(ii)(II)''.
    (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall 
apply to cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 2001.
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