There has been some concern over congress failing to pass the “Doctor Fix” before leaving for Christmas. What is the “Doctor Fix?”
The way I recall this being explained is that congress passed a law to stem the growth of Medicare spending around 2005 plus or minus. At least one part of the plan was to limit what they paid Doctors.
The Doctors did not like this so after they took credit for passing it, they voted not to actually reduce it. This has happened every year since.
This begs the question: If they are not actually going to do it, why does congress not repeal it?
I think that the way this works is that back when the US had a budget (pre Obama) they would include cutting the Medicare reimbursement that Doctors receive for treating Medicare payments to make Medicare look like it was not crashing and burning so badly. Then, after it was scored, they would vote not to reduce the reimbursements and just borrow the money to cover the shortfall; kind of a magician’s trick except that all of the people voting were in on it. It has been done ever since.
Is this not correct?
Medicare Doctor Fix
December 21, 2011 by Steve Larrimore
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