This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will consider solutions to Medicare’s flawed physician payment scheme. Physician payment is annually updated on the basis of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), a special economic formula which, as configured today, would result in deep annual payment cuts. This directly threatens seniors’ access to care as it becomes financially infeasible for doctors to continue to take new Medicare patients under progressively lower payments. The problem will only get worse in the future, and it represents one of the most poignant examples of …
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday about the President’s 2012 fiscal year budget and the status of health care reform. Despite the projected $1.6 trillion deficit in the President’s budget, Sebelius claimed that it represents “the blueprint for putting (President Obama’s) vision into action and making the investments that will grow our economy and create jobs.” Here are some of the noteworthy exchanges the Secretary had with Senators on the committee. Senator Max Baucus (D–MT) lauded the Medicare “doc …
President Obama has received praise for including a two-year Medicare “doc fix” in his FY 2012 budget proposal, but hold the applause. Every year, physician reimbursement for treating Medicare patients is scheduled to decrease according to the “sustainable growth rate” formula. This complex and unworkable policy is intended to create savings, but Congress has delayed the cuts for years, since allowing such dramatic cuts would cause many physicians to drop Medicare patients altogether, resulting in severely reduced access to care for seniors. Physicians and patients need a permanent solution to …
When now-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) was sworn in as Speaker on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8.67 trillion. By the time Pelosi surrendered the gavel to Speaker John Boehner (R–OH) yesterday, the national debt stood at $14.01 trillion. At $5.34 trillion, that means Speaker Pelosi added more than $1 trillion in debt per year during her tenure as Speaker. And yet she has the audacity to tell reporters Tuesday: “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.” Only someone …
Senate leaders reached an agreement Monday to delay cuts to physician reimbursement rates under Medicare for one year. The details of the negotiations have yet to be ironed out, but if the deal makes it through Congress, doctors will avert a 23 percent pay cut scheduled for January 1. Heritage health policy expert Bob Moffit explains in a recent post that the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, enacted in 1997, arbitrarily ties Medicare physician reimbursement to the overall performance of the economy, meaning that when payments grow faster than the …
There’s been a lot of misinformation when it comes to the new health care law—but not in the way Obamacare supporters have been claiming. We heard early on in the health reform debate that a massive overhaul of the private health care sector would bend the health care cost downward. But when that looked unlikely under the best scenarios, Obamacare proponents pivoted and said the American public would embrace this law. Even former President Bill Clinton recently admitted he was wrong in saying that Democrats would pick up additional support …
Two new studies highlight the growing concern that the true cost for Obamacare is greater than originally anticipated. Last week, a new report from the Office of the Actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revised its estimates—exposing yet again that the new law will mean more health care spending, not less. Plus, the Congressional Research Service released a report that suggests states will face higher costs as a result of Obamacare. These studies are just two examples of how assumptions, even small ones, in forecast models …
As November approaches, Obamacare’s defenders are quite plainly desperate. They see public opinion solidly against them, and a devastating election fast approaching. Their latest gambit to protect what was jammed through Congress in March is to claim that repeal would be so costly to the federal budget that it would be impossible to pass, even with overwhelming popular support. That’s the spin some on the left put on a recent letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID). But unfortunately for these advocates, that’s not what …
The long-debated extenders bill failed to pass the Senate yesterday by a wide margin (45-52). That’s good new for taxpayers because the bill contained $48 billion in new taxes, $126 billion in new spending and added $79 billion to the national debt. Despite yesterday’s setback, Senate leaders are undeterred and released a new version of the extenders bill today. This latest version is essentially no different than the one that passed the House in late May and the bill that failed in the Senate yesterday. Senate leaders did cut almost …
The Senate voted 45-52 yesterday to oppose the $140 billion so-called “extenders bill” (HR 4213). The Hill is reporting that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is going to offer a slimmed down version for consideration as early as today. Two key health provisions of the bill are expected to be a continued bailout of state Medicaid programs and a temporary Medicare ‘Doc Fix’. The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), initiated in 1997, links the increase in Medicare reimbursement rates to growth in GDP. Since medical costs historically increase at a rate more …
