House Passes $210 Billion Doc-Fix Without Paying for It On Thursday, the House passed a $210 billion stand-alone bill to protect doctors from scheduled cuts in Medicare payments over the next ten years, also known as a doc-fix. In 1997, Congress attempted to control Medicare’s skyrocketing growth through a payment formula known as the sustainable growth rate (SGR), and since its enactment it has been difficult for Congress to adhere to the resulting reductions in physicians’ payments. In fact, since 2002, Congress has stepped in to delay these cuts from taking place which has made the problem worse. Beginning January 2010, absent a change in law, Medicare physician payments will be reduced by more than 20 percent. In order to address this, the Majority cunningly detached the permanent doc-fix provision from the larger health care bill, the so-called Affordable Health Care for America Act, and introduced it separately—without it being paid for—so that the cost of the doc-fix would n...
