President Obama yesterday signed into law the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009. The ACC on Jan. 15 sent letters to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing support for the reauthorization of SCHIP.

Luckily, the law does not include a ban on physician self-referral to hospitals in which they have an ownership interest that was present in the House version. The College has made clear our concern that the idea (promoted into the language by the Amn. Hospital Association) is a poor strategy. Note that hospitals are again buying up physician practices to capture referrals on their side. We think this issue should best be assessed community-by-community based on whether such ownership issues are appropriate in each specific setting to the best interests of patients and to promoting quality care, not based on hospital-versus-physician politics.

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