Next Week’s House Health Care Shell Game
Robert Moffit /
Next week, the House of Representatives is scheduled to take up a bill (H.R. 3961) which would enact a permanent “fix” to the unquestionably flawed Medicare physician payment update formula. The Congress created a formula for physician Medicare payment that would automatically cut doctor payments, but has routinely acted to prevent its own handiwork from going into effect each year. So, under current law, any permanent fix would sharply increase Medicare spending.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill would cost an additional $210 billion over the next ten years. In fact, the measure was originally included in earlier versions of the House health care bill , but it was later carved out of the legislation in order to reduce bill’s ten year cost and make the Congressional leadership’s health care agenda appear more fiscally responsible than it is. The Senate leadership tried to pull a similar stunt a couple of weeks ago, got called on it in the press, and the ploy failed. (more…)