Congress’ pattern of procrastination has led to numerous fiscally irresponsible compromises that threaten Medicare’s physician foundation and endanger access to care for more than 40 million seniors, veterans and military families.
Unless Congress acts, Medicare payments are scheduled to be slashed by 27 percent on March 1, and physicians will be forced to make unwelcome choices, including limiting the number of Medicare patients they take on. TRICARE is also endangered since the government’s health program for military families ties its payment rates to Medicare.
Congress has intervened 13 times in the last decade with temporary patches that have postponed drastic Medicare payment cuts mandated by the government’s broken formula. Repeated short-term patches to the broken formula have made the problem worse by compounding the cost of a solution for taxpayers and mandated steeper cuts in physician payments year after year.
As recently as 2005, the cost of eliminating the broken payment formula would have been $48 billion. Today, the cost is $300 billion. If Congress continues its temporary interventions, the cost will escalate to $600 billion in only five years.
Another temporary patch is fiscally irresponsible. The price of a long overdue solution will never be less than it is right now. It is irrational to spend increasing amounts of taxpayer money to support a payment policy that is a proven failure.
Since Medicare was founded in 1965, advances in medical research, education and training have helped increase the average senior’s life expectancy to age 78 — an eight-year increase. While the practice of medicine has evolved, Medicare’s payment formula created in 1997 remains stuck in the last century. Now is the time for a prudent, permanent solution that will preserve the security and stability of health care for seniors and military families.
As a practicing physician in Atlanta, I know Medicare patients are already having trouble finding physicians in this area and around the nation.
There is a unique opportunity right now to use projected spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to eliminate the flawed formula and protect access to care for seniors and military families. As these wars wind down, projected spending that won’t be used becomes available to pay for eliminating the fatally flawed Medicare physician payment formula to ensure access to care for seniors and military — without adding to the nation’s deficit.
A recent poll found that 94 percent of Americans believe the impending cut is a serious problem for seniors who rely on Medicare. Patients need to give their representatives in Washington a second opinion.
Decisive congressional action is needed now to eliminate the flawed Medicare payment formula that threatens Medicare’s promise for current and future generations.
Patrice Harris, an Atlanta psychiatrist, is a board member of the American Medical Association.
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