Congress, which starts its Memorial Day recess on May 31, will have to act soon to avert automatic implementation of the 21.3 percent cut on June 1.
In the past, Congress passed one fee-fix the whole year, but in recent months it has been passing short-term “patches” in hopes of getting up the willpower to pass a more expensive, longer-term fix. This time, however, moderate Republicans who might have voted for the five-year fix objected to its $90 million price tag.
So Congress continues to patch the problem. This year alone, it has already passed three short-term patches, two of which arrived after the deadline.
Meanwhile, the AMA has been opposing the five-year fee fix, included in a tax extenders bill in the House, saying it doesn’t address Medicare’s solvency issues, according to a report by the Hill.
In a memo to members of Congress obtained by the Hill, Kenneth Hopson of the AMA’s Division of Federal Affairs wrote that the organization could not support the five-year provision because it doesn’t stop the calculated amount of fee cut from accumulating and produces a huge potential cut at the end of five years.
The AMA is calling for permanent repeal of the sustainable growth rate, the formula that produces the cut, but that would cost about $250 billion. Most of that cost would be subject to the House’s “pay-go” rules, which require an equal amount of spending cuts for new spending.
Read Politico’s report on the physician fee fix.
Read the Hill’s report on the physician fee fix.
