BREAKING NEWS: Congress Averts SGR Cuts for 12 Months
In a 409-2 vote, the House passed a one-year Medicare fix. Thursday afternoon. The $19.2 billion measure was approved in the House one day after the Senate approved the fix by unanimous consent. The bill will now go to the White House where President Obama is expected to sign it.
H.R. 4994, the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, will avert the 25 percent cut related to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) scheduled to take effect January 1, 2011. However, Congress’s action does not affect other Medicare physician payment policy changes effective on January 1, 2011, such as the 8.2 percent cut to conversion factor to offset RVU re-basing.
The cost of this 12 month doc-fix is offset by the inclusion of a tax provision known as “true up” in which individuals who received federal government subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance during the course of a tax year become ineligible for such subsidies due to a change in their income level putting thus them above the income level (400 percent of poverty) eligible for such subsidies.
President Obama released a statement Wednesday, calling the measures an important step forward to stabilize Medicare, but called for a permanent solution from Congress in the next year.
