Reid buying off doctors to support ObamaCare?

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Harry Reid has launched a new effort to woo doctors into supporting ObamaCare, 'The Hill' reports this morning. That may surprise some who watched the White House hold a Rose Garden event with scores of lab-coat-clad physicians that claimed the medical profession was foursquare in support of Barack Obama’s overhaul of the American medical industry. Most other physicians object to the cuts in Medicare reimbursements that pay for the conversion, so Reid will dump the cuts to buy their endorsement:

The White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal: They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors’ support of healthcare reform.

At a meeting on Capitol Hill last week with nearly a dozen doctors groups, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the Senate would take up separate legislation to halt scheduled Medicare cuts in doctor payments over the next 10 years. In return, Reid made it clear that he expected their support for the broader healthcare bill, according to four sources in the meeting. …

Reid also asked that doctors ease up on demands for medical malpractice reform during the upcoming healthcare debate. Democrats have traditionally resisted calls for tort reform, which trial attorneys — a reliable base group — staunchly oppose.

But the primary focus of the meeting was on Democratic plans to bring to the Senate floor a standalone bill costing nearly $250 billion that would freeze cuts in doctors’ payments mandated by a 1997 law. Without the freeze, doctors would see their Medicare payments drop by 21 percent next year and by 40 percent by 2016. The bill’s costs are not offset by tax increases or spending cuts at a time when the Obama administration estimates the federal deficit at $1.4 trillion.