TMA EVPGram

The U.S. Senate passed another Band-Aid for Medicare’s SGR formula — this time freezing current Medicare payment rates until Oct. 1. We don’t know if the House will follow suit before the 21.2-percent cut comes back again on April 1. The other piece of the puzzle is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that, sometime this week, the House will consider the same “reform” bill the Senate approved on Christmas Eve. TMA opposed the Senate bill in December because it was bad for patients and bad for the profession. It is still bad for patients. It is still bad for the profession. We still oppose it.