{"id":311999,"date":"2010-02-12T12:28:11","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=76506"},"modified":"2010-02-12T12:28:11","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T17:28:11","slug":"docs-send-warning-to-dems-no-more-temporary-doc-fixes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/311999","title":{"rendered":"Docs Send Warning to Dems: No More Temporary Doc-Fixes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December, when the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest doctors lobby, endorsed the Senate’s plan for reforming health care, the backing came with a warning<\/a>: The final bill must include a long-term fix to the flawed formula — dubbed the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR — that currently dictates Medicare payments to doctors. Although AMA was willing to accept Congress’ 60-day patch (passed in December) preventing a 21-percent cut in doc payments scheduled for January, the group vowed to oppose any temporary pay patches in the future.<\/p>\n

“Congress must replace the SGR early next year,” AMA wrote<\/a> to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in December.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Democrats, the future is now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because that 60-day patch expires at the end of February, Senate leaders are scrambling for ways to stave off those cuts and<\/em> satisfy the powerful doctors lobby. So far, they aren’t doing a very good job.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the $85 billion jobs package unveiled yesterday by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) — which included<\/a> a seven-month SGR patch — met the immediate opposition of the AMA.<\/p>\n

“It is deeply disappointing that the Senate is considering a short-term, band-aid approach through the pending jobs bill,” AMA said in a statement. “Kicking the can down the road with another short-term action increases the size of the cut and the cost of reform — and makes it very difficult for physicians to care for seniors and military families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reid has reportedly<\/a> stripped the Medicare language out of the jobs bill, to the satisfaction of both AMA and economists<\/a> who want that package to focus exclusively on job-creating measures. How he plans to address that 21-percent cut before March 1 is another dilemma altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In December, when the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest doctors lobby, endorsed the Senate’s plan for reforming health care, the backing came with a warning: The final bill must include a long-term fix to the flawed formula — dubbed the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR — that currently dictates Medicare payments to doctors. Although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}