Senate Republican leaders on Thursday called for a one-month hiatus in the partisan battle over Medicare physician payment rates, a bid that is likely to fall on deaf ears.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to try again to muster the 60 votes he will need to push a House-passed Medicare bill through his chamber. That measure would block doctor pay cuts that took effect July 1 but have been temporarily suspended until July 15.

The political rhetoric has only intensified since the Senate fell a single vote short last week of sending the Medicare bill to President Bush, who has threatened to veto it.

Lobbying groups for physicians and seniors have kept up a barrage of attacks during the July Fourth recess on Republican senators who voted against the House bill.

Like Bush, most of those Republicans object not to the effort to stop the 10.6 percent cut in the fees doctors are paid by Medicare, but rather to provisions that would offset the cost by trimming payments to insurance companies that offer private Medicare Advantage plans.

Given the current stalemate, it’s far from clear anything can be enacted by July 15. Even if the Senate should pass the bill, its supporters are unlikely to have enough votes to override Bush’s veto.

“Republicans continue to believe that immediate action on a short-term extension is necessary,” the GOP leaders said Friday, calling for a 31-day extension of the old payment rates. “The millions of beneficiaries who depend on Medicare and the providers who treat them are not political pawns in a partisan game, and Congress should not treat them that way.”