By a vote of 243-183, the US House passed HR 3961—Medicare Physician Payment Act on Thursday. The bill repeals the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula and provides an MEI, or Medicare Economic Index, update for 2010 instead of a 21 percent Medicare physician payment cut. It also eliminates all SGR debt accumulated over the years because of temporary, unfunded fixes, and it establishes updates based on two new targets with significantly higher spending growth allowances than the SGR. The NCMS has supported repeal of the SGR and urged members of the NC Congressional Delegation to support legislation that will fix the broken Medicare physician payment system. The House action is considered a significant first step toward overall health care system reform. The Senate must now act quickly to prevent the cuts before they begin on January 1. To see how your representative voted, go to: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll909.xml.
The NCMS will be analyzing pending health care system reform legislation in the House and Senate, and will provide members a complete analysis online at https://www.compassionatecarenc.org/ after Thanksgiving. NCMS members are also invited to provide their comment on the Doctor to Doctor Blog at https://www.compassionatecarenc.org/blog/.
at 3:54 pm
I would rather see a 21% medicare cut on 1/1/2010. I dont want to see a 0% increase or decrease over 10 years. This is a 30% or more cut over the 10 year period. We are barely breaking even on Medicare patients now. A 0% increase or decrease would be devistating. Anything less than a substantial increase is a poor decision. A 21% cut would allow us all to drop all insurances: therefore no bundling, no globals and no more intervention.