Thursday, January 28th the Senate passed H.J. Res. 45, a resolution to raise the federal debt limit by $1.9 trillion, bringing the total national debt limit to $14.3 trillion.
Included in this resolution is a provision to reinstate PAYGO rules for new spending, meaning that any new spending or tax cuts would have to be offset by corresponding spending cuts or tax increases.
A limited exemption for the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) was made to this PAYGO rule. Up to $82 billion in spending for an SGR fix would not be required to be offset by other revenue or cuts, should this resolution pass. However, an additional $130 billion in offsets would still be required to permanently repeal the SGR.
H.J. Res. 45 will be considered by the House of Representatives next week. It is important to note that this legislation does not implement a new Medicare physician payment policy. It is still up to Congress to enact separate legislation to stop the 21.2% SGR cuts schedule to begin March 1, 2010. The NCMS continues to advocate for legislation that will permanently repeal the SGR before March 1st.
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Repealing the 21.2% SGR will figure significantly in our decision as to whether we can keep our solo practice functioning at a small profit–or whether we must close.