Medicare Cut Effective Today: Who Should Doctors Be Angry At?

Instead of blogging (again) about Congress’s failure to stop the 21% Medicare SGR cut, which went into effect today, I could just re-run my April 16 post. I wrote then:

“It is the failure of both political parties, over many years, to honestly deal with the SGR, including the cost of getting rid of it, which has resulted in the current ongoing SGR farce. And yet members of Congress wonder why the public holds them in such low regard.”

Blogging in DB’s Medicare Rants, Dr. Bob Centor captures the outrage felt by most physicians:

“I am mad. Every physician I know is mad. Patients should join us in expressing anger. Physicians cannot trust Congress if they cannot repair this absurdity.”

(Bob references ACP’s statement, released on Friday; click here to read it in its entirety.)

That Congress allowed politics again to get in the way of doing what is best for patients makes my blood boil. Voters can and should hold them accountable.

But I also have to tell you, anger directed at ACP by some members also makes my blood boil. Typical is one who emailed that “ACP has been suckered just like everyone else” for “trusting” Congress to fix the SGR in exchange for supporting health care reform.

The effort to link the SGR to ACP’s position on health care reform makes my blood boil, because the SGR has been around since 1997. It has nothing to do with health reform. The fact is that Republicans and Democrats alike have been unwilling over the past decade to come up with the political will (and money) to repeal the SGR, and we now are facing the accumulated consequences of their failure. (To be fair, a majority of the House of Representative passed legislation late last year to repeal the SGR, but it never advanced in the Senate.)

Here again, Bob Centor has it right when he explains that he supported health care reform because “addressing the problem of the uninsured was so important that it trumped the weaknesses in the bill.”

Bob continues: “This was the chance to start down the road to universal coverage. I see SGR as a totally separate issue. The lack of the SGR fix represents profound weakness of our political process. This issue tells us that both parties are more interested in posturing than solving problems.”

It makes my blood boil when uninformed people cynically allege that ACP supported health care reform in exchange for SGR repeal. The thing is, there never was any such deal, nor should there have been. ACP favored health reform because every American should have access to affordable health insurance coverage, and because the legislation advances most of the organization’s policies on coverage, workforce, and delivery system reform.

Yes, repeal of the SGR is and was a top priority, with or without health reform.

And yes, it is maddening that we can’t get a majority of the House and 60 U.S. Senators to vote to fix the SGR, once and for all.

Members of Congress, Democratic and Republican alike, need to hear from doctors and patients that you are mad, and why.

Anger may help light a fire under Congress’ feet, but it probably won’t be enough to ensure 60 votes in the U.S. Senate for getting rid of the SGR.

Instead, it is going to fall to doctor’s professional organizations, like ACP, to do the hard work of finding an approach that will actually pass. Sure, be angry — but direct your anger at those responsible for the SGR debacle, not at those of us who are trying to fix it.

Today’s question: Are you angry about the SGR? If so, what are you saying to your members of Congress?

*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*


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