Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) has been filibustering legislation that includes a postponement of the cut as well as a 30-day extension in unemployment benefits. But other Republicans did not join Sen. Bunning’s campaign and many of them see his efforts as a political liability.
CMS has put a freeze for 10 business days on physician Medicare claims, giving Congress in effect two weeks to address the pay cut.
Physician organizations want Congress to rescind the formula behind the cut. But at a time of very heavy federal spending, Congress is nervous about discarding a mechanism that could potentially help balance the budget, even though the cuts have never been implemented.
The automatic fee cut started nine years ago as a deficit-reduction measure, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reported. Congress has postponed the cuts every year since then, but they continued to accrue, to the point that “the bite on docs grew too large for Congress to actually allow them to go into effect,” the blog observed.
Read The Hill’s report on Medicare physician fee cuts.
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