11/8/10

On Medicare's 23% December phyisician fee cut: If "Obamacare" was dependent on the cuts to be "deficit reducing," could negating the cuts betray the electorate?

"The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
has released the 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule,
which includes a 23 percent cut to Medicare physician fees...
 
...Congress delayed a scheduled pay cut of around 20 percent in June.
 

Rachel Fields
Beckers Hosptial Review, November 04, 2010
 


.
.
Did the delay of the June pay cut alter the "affordability"
of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),
and if so, who voted for both the initial legislation
and also voted to reverse the cuts making the law "affordable"? 
 

.
"...The report from Medicare's Office of the Actuary
...acknowledged that some of the cost-control measures in the [PPACA] bill
Medicare cuts, a tax on high-cost insurance
...could help reduce the rate of cost increases beyond 2020.
 
...the longer-term viability of the Medicare . . . reductions is doubtful."
wrote Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary"
 
Associated Press
.


Have the American people been lied to,
if the government passed a law that said X,
and those who voted for it did Y,
that made the "affordability" non-viable? 
 

.
.
"...Neither the [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)] bill
...nor the accompanying reconciliation...
...addresses the flawed formula that dictates physician payments under Medicare
 
...a bill passed by the House in November would scrap the SGR altogether,
replacing it with a formula designed to ensure that doctors’ Medicare payments
reflect the true cost of delivering care.
 
Pricetag: $210 billion.  

...it was that cost that caused Democrats,
who’d vowed both to keep their reform package below $1 trillion and to offset the entire tab
to strip the doc fix from the larger reform bills." 
 

The issue has left Democrats in a pickle:
...with voters already weary of deficit spending,
[and/or borrowing] another $210 billion to fund a permanent fix."
 
Mike Lillis
Washington Independent 
.
 

If Medicare Cuts
are what makes the recently passed Healthcare Legislation "deficit reducing"
and the 23% cut is not enacted in December,
how could those who voted for the legislation be considered
not guilty of misleeding the electorate? 
 

.
From an email from some supporting the elimination of the cut:
 
"Is the new healthcare law accounting dependent on the 23% payment reduction?  

If the can is kicked down the road,
does the math in the healthcare legislation become not operable?" 
 

George Hartzman 

The answer: 
 
"That is how the administration officials explained it to us...
 

...Their numbers are based on the law as it stands,
and it currently stands that the cuts will occur. 
 

I think you know the answer to your last question."  

Lee Beadling
Managing Editor, Orthopedics Today 
 



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