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Contact: Spencer Pederson
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Democrats Use Doctors as Political Pawns in Passing Irresponsible ‘Doc Fix’
Washington,
Nov 19, 2009 -
Congressman George Radanovich (R-Mariposa) issued the following statement after the House of Representatives passed the ‘doc fix’ legislation that will add over $200 billion to the federal deficit.
“Today, Speaker Pelosi used doctors as political pawns to add over $200 billion dollars to our federal deficit. The need to permanently remove the Sustainable Growth Rate that makes it difficult for our hardworking doctors to provide care to the elderly should not be used for political posturing—we need to work together to fix the SGR problem once and for all.
“While this Democrat majority continues to pile debt onto the back of our children and grandchildren, Republicans have a better way to address the current problems with the Medicare payment rate. I hope doctors around the country will see the bill that passed today for what it is: reckless government spending fueled by political gamesmanship.”
NOTE: Following is a summary of Republicans’ better solution to reimburse physicians fairly and ensure that Medicare beneficiaries have access to the health care they need in a fiscally responsible way:
• Provide physicians with a two percent Medicare payment rate increase in each of the next four years. This would erase the scheduled 21 percent cut in 2010 and the roughly five percent cuts in 2011, 2012, and 2013. The remaining savings ($26.3 billion) generated by the reforms included in the GOP alternative will be used to address future cuts. At a cost of $210 billion, the Democrats’ bill would provide for a 0.8 percent payment rate increase in 2010, but physicians could see their rates cut as early as 2011.
• Avert the scheduled Medicare physician cuts in a fiscally responsible way by including reforms that would fully offset the cost of the bill. These reforms would:
Implement comprehensive, meaningful medical liability reform, ending junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine by protecting doctors from overzealous trial lawyers who are looking to get rich quick (savings of $54 billion; H.R. 1086 introduced by Rep. Gingrey);
Use existing resources available to the HHS Secretary contained in the “Medicare Improvement Fund,” which is designed to improve physician payments (savings of $22.3 billion);
Create an approval process at FDA for biosimilar products with appropriate patent and market protections that continue to encourage innovation, providing Americans with access to affordable biologics and reducing the cost of health insurance (savings of $5.7 billion; nearly identical to H.R. 1548 introduced by Reps. Eshoo and Barton); and
Enact health insurance administrative simplification policies, eliminating inefficiencies that unnecessarily drive up health care costs, by creating greater standardization in health care forms and transactions (savings of $19 billion.)
Unlike the Democrats’ bill, the GOP proposal would not increase the deficit.
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