Medicare Inflation Update
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Colleagues:
On September 26, MSSNY EVP Tom Lee, MD and I met with our AMA senior physician leadership and our AMA lobbyists, along with other state leaders from Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Florida, to plan a lobbying blitz for Medicare payment reform. Congressman Larry Bucshon, MD from Indiana also attended. Afterwards, Tom and I lobbied and met with the offices of Senator Chuck Schumer and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis.
The upshot is that we are pushing for a Medicare update to not just eliminate the proposed cuts, but to also make up for inflation. By not keeping up with inflation, Medicare payment purchasing power is half of what it was 20 years ago. The pushback from our lobbying is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has placed a huge price tag on our proposal. We then pointed out that failure to provide adequate inflation updates results in greater costs to the Medicare program when physician offices close and hospital outpatient clinics take over and charge much more for the same services. The encouraging response was that the CBO does not appear to have taken this into account, and that if we can provide statistics and not just anecdotes, we may be able to move the needle on our demands.
To help amplify our message to not only members of Congress, but our patients as well, my op-ed calling for Congressional action to end this annual “Medicare madness” was published in USA Today Network papers across New York state last week.
We are optimistic that our message, and those of our colleagues across the country, are being heard. A letter urging a multiple year fix to this problem was signed by nearly 200 members of the House of Representatives, including 16 members, Republican and Democrat, from New York’s Congressional delegation. Our aim is to ensure that a multiple year Medicare increase to physician payment is passed during the lame-duck session of Congress this fall. It is long overdue, and our patients face serious access consequences if action is not taken.
As for the upcoming AMA lobbying blitz, we discussed plans to rally physicians and students in Washington at the capital around the time of the NAC conference in February. Our AMA is developing Media packets for use by our members at home.
Stay tuned, more to come! In the meantime, you can help by sending a message to your Representative and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand here: Take Action | Fix Medicare Now
All the best,
Jerome C. Cohen, MD
MSSNY President
MSSNY EVP Dr. Thomas Lee (far left) and MSSNY President Dr. Jerome Cohen (5th from left) meet with AMA senior physician leadership, AMA lobbyists, and other state leaders
