The Senate has passed an 18-month Medicare physician payment bill that negates steep reductions in the Medicare physician payment rate for the remainder of this year and next year. The legislation now will go to President Bush."H.R. 6331" in the search box after selecting "Bill Number") maintains current Medicare payment levels for the rest of 2008 and provides a 1.1 percent increase in the Medicare payment rate in 2009, thus negating a 10.6 percent payment reduction that took effect on July 1 and an additional 5.4 percent reduction that was scheduled to take place in 2009. Bush has threatened to...