The bill, S. 1776, would have removed for 10 years the sustainable growth rate formula that mandates the cut, but at a cost of $250 billion and with no funding source, which was the key reason it was defeated.
The Hill reports that Democratic leaders in the Senate deliberately did not include the 10-year pay fix in health reform legislation because they worried that its huge price tag would sink the whole reform package, which is not supposed to add to the deficit.
Meanwhile, physicians still would be saved from a scheduled 21 percent Medicare pay cut on January 1 — receiving a 0.5 percent increase instead — if Congress passes the Senate Finance Committee’s reform bill, but that is only a one-year fix.
The AMA, which pushed hard for the 10-year fix, expressed its disappointment, and a comment by AMA President James Rohack, MD, a few days before the vote suggests that the AMA might be less supportive of health reform now that the 10-year fix is no longer on the table.
Read the Hill’s report on the sustainable growth rate.
