It’s been nearly a year since Democrats and Republicans agreed on a plan to fix one of Medicare’s biggest ailments, but they don’t appear much closer to actually executing it.
At the end of March, Medicare payments to doctors will plunge dramatically unless Congress temporarily averts the cuts in what’s become popularly known as the “doc fix.” The problem has arisen nearly every year since 2003, caused by a faulty payment formula that leads to increasingly larger cuts.
Lawmakers want a permanent fix to the problem — and they came closer than ever to that last year when the House and Senate committee leaders negotiated a plan to replace the payment formula. Kicking off a two-day hearing on the issue Wednesday morning, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee health subcommittee said they want to get it done.
“I am absolutely committed to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to get this done,” said Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the full committee.
“We’ve got the bill, we’ve got the draft, we’re ready to go,” said health subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts, R-Penn.
But the big hang-up remains how to satisfy the $138 billion price tag, and it’s clear the parties are still in deep disagreement over how to pay for it — or whether to at all.
The committee’s leading Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, doesn’t think the cost needs to be offset. And if it is, he wants to use unused war funds that Republicans call a budget gimmick. And he definitely objects to freeing up funding by cutting any Medicare benefits, he said, calling them “poison pills” that could derail negotiations.
“It shouldn’t be paid off the backs of beneficiaries,” Pallone said.
