Hoyer wants permanent fix for SGR formula

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in a meeting with reporters called for a permanent fix to Medicare's physician payment problem, and asserted that a government-run public option provision “would not be thrown out” of House healthcare reform legislation.

The one-year solution that the Senate Finance Committee's reform bill contains for fixing the physician payment formula is inadequate, Hoyer said. “A one-year fix makes (the situation) look better but it's a façade of looking better,” Hoyer said, adding, “What we ought to do is fix it permanently.”

Medicare physicians are paid under the sustainable-growth rate, or SGR, formula, which is tied to the health of the economy and has been threatening payment cuts for at least six years. Unless Congress intervenes as it has so many times in the past to stop these cuts, doctors face a 21% reduction to their payments in 2010.

The House bill, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act, does contain a permanent solution for fixing the payment formula. A permanent fix is estimated to cost about $245 billion, he said. Whether or not such a fix is addressed in healthcare reform or some other legislative avenue doesn't matter, Hoyer continued. The bottom line is compensating physicians adequately so they won't drop Medicare patients, he said.

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