Medicare patients and the physicians who provide care for them are asking that the Senate embrace similar legislation, ACP pointed out.

Temporary congressional interventions to prevent past cuts have resulted in updates that have not kept up with increases in medical practice costs and have pushed the cost of fixing the physician payments to future years, making a meaningful long-term resolution more expensive. The main reason physicians are facing a 10.1 percent cut in 2008 -- which is almost double the cuts physicians faced in 2006, the last time Congress passed legislation to forestall scheduled SGR cuts -- is because the 109th Congress did not provide adequate funding to pay for a short-term fix to the scheduled cuts in 2006 and 2007.


"Coming up with a one-year fix to the problem that makes the cuts worse in future years is not the solution," Dr. Dale continued. "We have been fighting this annual battle over-and-over again for seven years now. The Senate needs to join the House in passing legislation that will pay for positive updates in the next two years. In the long term, more fundamental reforms of Medicare payment policies will be needed."

"The huge cuts scheduled to come in less than two months will be devastating to Medicare patients' access and quality," Dr. Dale concluded. "Our patients need immediate assistance and a long-term solution."

The American College of Physicians is the nation's largest medical specialty organization. Membership is composed of 124,000 internal medicine physicians (internists) and medical students. Internists provide the majority of health care to adults in America. Internists are specialists in adult medicine and provide comprehensive care to adult patients.

Back to HCB News

More Industry Headlines