By: NACHC Staff
A brief on the House bill by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities indicates that the legislation would improve coverage and affordability while slowing cost growth and instituting important insurance market reforms.
Moreover, the bill’s cost is more than fully offset; that is, the legislation would reduce budget deficits by $104 billion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill’s revenues and spending reductions would grow faster than the cost of the coverage provisions, according to CBO, which estimates that the bill would modestly reduce deficits in years after 2019 as well.
One way the House bill funded their proposal was by pulling the fix for the Medicare physician payment schedule out of the bill. This saves around $200 billion over 10 years and leaves that issue unsettled. There is talk of the House considering funding for the Medicare payment fix in a separate bill, but this is the same strategy the Senate refused to go along with a couple weeks ago.
pulling out the fix for the Medicare physician payment schedule out of the bill is only one more slap in the face to primary care physicians who get paid the least and always promised and increase in revenue somewhere and before it’s instituted a decrease in reimbursement is enarcted somewhere else. I’m a primary care physician and have been for 32 yrs and I cannot encourage any new Dr into primary care without warning him to be prepared that the payment schedules for medicare, and therfor all insurance companies with base reimbursement on medicare fee schedules, will shaft him at every turn.