Just hours after the White House vetoed the HR 6331 bill on Tuesday, aimed at forestalling an 11 percent cut in payments to doctors taking care of Medicare patients, both houses of Congress swiftly overrode the veto, thus transforming the bill into a law.

The vote in the House was 383 to 41, with 153 Republicans defying George W. Bush, while in the Senate, the vote was 70 to 26, with 21 Republicans voting to override, in both cases far more than the two-thirds necessary to block the President’s action.

The President chose to veto the bill saying it would cut federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans and slow the growth of such plans, offered by insurance companies as an alternative to traditional Medicare.

“I support the primary objective of this legislation, to forestall reductions in physician payments,” Bush said in his veto message. “Yet taking choices away from seniors to pay physicians is wrong. This bill is objectionable, and I am vetoing it.”

The override seems to be what the American Medical Association and AARP (the advocacy group for older Americans) wanted in the first place. The AMA backed the bill and blamed Senate Republicans who tried to block it, in a series of radio and TV commercials, accusing them of favoring insurance companies over doctors and elderly patients. The AMA ads say these senators are aiding “powerful insurance companies at the expense of Medicare patients’ access to doctors.” The commercials pointed at 10 Republican senators, including seven up for election this fall.

This was not the only action taken by the American Medical Association. The organization along with AARP deluged members of Congress with messages warning that doctors would be less likely to take Medicare patients if their fees were cut.

“Today we celebrate that Congress heard the voices of millions of patients and physicians and voted to override President Bush’s veto and protect the health of America,” Nancy Nielsen, the American Medical Association’s president wrote in an e-mailed statement after the Senate’s vote, Bloomberg reports.

Tuesday’s vote marked the fourth time in his two terms that Bush has had a veto overturned by Congress. During nearly eight years as president, Bush has vetoed 12 bills. The Medicare bill is the third, along with the recent farm bill and a water resources bill, to become law despite Bush’s veto.