Congress Exhorted To Avert Medicare Pay Cuts

In President Obama’s weekly national address on Saturday, Mr. Obama called for Congress to quickly take action to ensure that a planned 21 percent decline in Medicare reimbursement for physicians, which is set to take effect this week, is averted. Proposals to address this draconian cut for doctors who see Medicare patients have been stalled in the Senate. The concern, articulated by the President and echoed by countless others in the debate, is that if the reduction goes into effect, it would “undoubtedly force some doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients altogether.” The cut arises from a formula adopted by Congress in the late 1990s to slow the growth of Medicare spending, but these cuts have been deferred each year since 2003. Democrats have announced that they are proposing another temporary fix. The physician provider community will be intensively focused on developments with legislative efforts this week.

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