The House has passed a bill that pays for restoring a $6 billion cut to military pensions by extending sequestration by one year to 2024.
The legislation also creates a transitional fund for sustainable growth rate reform. Every year since 2003, Congress has enacted a short-term legislative patch to delay double-digit cuts to physicians' Medicare reimbursement rates under the SGR. Last week, House and Senate leaders introduced a bipartisan bill that would permanently fix the SGR problem by repealing and replacing the formula.
House Republicans originally included these provisions in the text of the Temporary Debt Limit Extension Act, which tied the SGR fund, sequestration extension and pension cut reversal to suspending the debt ceiling until March 15. However, lawmakers decided to split the pension reduction reversal from the debt limit bill, which the House also passed yesterday.
Earlier this week, when the text of the debt limit bill was released, hospitals groups expressed concern immediately, urging lawmakers not to extend sequestration.
The American Hospital Association, America's Essential Hospitals, Association of American Medical Colleges, Catholic Health Association of the United States, Children’s Hospitals Association, Federation of American Hospitals, National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, Premier and VHA sent a letter to House members saying they "strongly oppose" the extension of sequestration, which would reduce Medicare payment rates.
"Medicare is meant to assure seniors access to needed medical care, not serve as a piggybank for other programs," the groups wrote. "It is bad policy to further extend Medicare sequester cuts that could undermine care for seniors."
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