Today the House passed legislation that would permanently reform the broken Medicare physician payment system.  The "Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act" (H.R. 3961) passed by a vote of 243-183.  The bill repeals a 21 percent fee reduction scheduled for January 2010, and replaces the physician payment formula with a more stable system that ends the unrealistic cycle of threats of ever-larger fee cuts followed by short-term patches.  The bill also includes statutory PAYGO legislation.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing titled, "Impacts of H.R. 3795, the Over-the-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009, on Energy Markets," on Wednesday, December 2, 2009, in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.  The hearing will examine the unintended impacts of H.R. 3795 which was recently reported by the House Agriculture Committee.

The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection and the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing titled, "Exploring the Offline and Online Collection and Use of Consumer Information," on Thursday, November 19, 2009, in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing examined the collection and commercial use of consumer data in the offline and online marketplace.

Leaders of the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last night requesting an expedited report on recent trends in prescription drug pricing.

The Energy and Commerce Committee met on Thursday, November 19, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. The committee considered H.R. 515, the Radioactive Import Deterrence Act, and H.R. 1084, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM Act).

Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry A. Waxman and Health Subcommittee Chair Frank Pallone released the following statement on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) release of new error rate information for Medicare.