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Medicare Drug Program News
Final Bill of this Congress Saved Physicians from
Big Medicare Pay Cut
AMA says it will help
avert a potential sharp decline in access for Americas senior citizens
 December 10, 2006 Sometime shortly before 4 a.m.
Saturday the Congress finally managed to pass legislation that will
stop Medicare from cutting what it pays physicians. On January 1, a 5.1
percent pay cut was to take affect. The measure passed by large margins
in both the senate and house but was packaged with a number of other
items the congressional leadership wanted to get passed before this
Congress ended.
A major hang-up on the pay cut for physicians has
been how to make up the money that would be lost by not instituting the
pay reduction. The Associated Press reported, "The GOP-crafted solution
to the problem was criticized as an accounting gimmick since it would
double the cost of fixing the problem again next year."
The American Medical Association's chairman, Dr.
Cecil Wilson, said," Congressional action to avert next years five
percent Medicare physician payment cut will help avert a potential sharp
decline in access for Americas seniors."
The AMA has repeatedly warned that many physicians
would stop taking Medicare patients if physician pay was cut.
"The AMA sincerely appreciates the bipartisan
efforts by House and Senate leaders, committee chairmen, ranking
minority members and congressional staff to prevent the Medicare cut
triggered by the flawed Medicare physician payment formula," Wilson
said.
"This action stops next years cut by maintaining
the current 2006 payment rate, and also sets aside funds to avert cuts
in 2008. This legislation also stops additional Medicare cuts to rural
physicians.
"If the 2007 Medicare cut had occurred as planned,
nearly half of physicians told the AMA the cut would force them to limit
the number of new Medicare patients into their practice.
"Todays action provides an important but temporary
reprieve for seniors and the physicians who care for them. The AMA
renews its commitment to work with Congress, the Administration and
senior groups on a more permanent solution to the flawed Medicare
physician payment formula. The time is long overdue to devise a sound
financing system for the Medicare program so we can avoid this annual
struggle to preserve seniors access to care.
"The legislation also initiates a physician quality
reporting program, and the AMA will continue to work with the
Administration and Congress on ways to improve health care quality.
"The AMA-convened Physician Consortium for
Performance Improvement has already developed 151 quality measures, and
we will work to ensure that Consortium measures continue to form the
foundation of a Medicare quality reporting program. We will work closely
with the incoming Congress to address concerns with the current
reporting framework."
The bill blocking the cut in Medicare payments to
doctors was actually a wide-ranging trade bill that also "restored $38
billion in popular tax breaks; established normal trade relations with
Vietnam and granted trade benefits to Haiti and four South American
countries; and blocked a cut in Medicare payments to doctors. The
measure also fulfilled a long-sought objective of Gulf Coast lawmakers
and the oil industry by expanding offshore drilling opportunities in the
eastern Gulf of Mexico and directing hundreds of millions of dollars in
new royalties to the region, according to the New York Times today.
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