Tanner-Hobson Bill Gains Additional Support
The American Association of Homecare (AAHomecare) recently reported that the Tanner-Hobson bill, H.R. 1845, has gained additional cosponsers in Congress over the last week, but additional sponsors are needed in order for the industry's lobbying efforts to be successful.
The Tanner-Hobson bill will help to ease competitive bidding with initiatives that would allow any home medical equipment (HME) provider to participate in Medicare at the selected award price resulting from competitive bidding and as long as the provider is otherwise compliant with program requirements.
Another provision of the Hobson-Tanner bill requires Medicare to conduct a complete analysis of the impact of competitive bidding on beneficiary access to quality products and the impact on home medical equipment providers and services after competitive bidding has been fully implemented in the initial 10 MSAs. The bill would prohibit Medicare from expanding competitive bidding to additional MSAs or applying bid rates to non-bid areas unless specifically authorized by Congress.
The bill's cosponsors include:
Charles Boustany, (R-La.)
Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
Bob Etheridge (R-N.C.)
David Hobson (R-Ohio)
Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio)
John Murtha (D-Penn.)
Tom Price (R-Ga.)
Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
Mike Ross (D-Ark.)
John Tanner (D-Tenn.)
Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.)
To help lobby for the Hobson-Tanner bill, industry members can join AAHomcare's Washington Legislative Conference June 7 in Washington, D.C. Providers, separated by state, can express their concerns face-to-face with senators and representatives during the June 7 lobbying day. Visit
www.aahomecare.org for more information.
This article originally appeared in the April 2007 issue of HME Business.