AMA urges public pressure on Senate to avert cut in Medicare physician payments

The American Medical Association recently launched a national advertising campaign urging the public to press members of the U.S. Senate to forestall a 21% reduction in Medicare physician payments.

The campaign, which began on June 3, comprises a barrage of television, radio and newspaper ads.

The House of Representatives voted May 28 on legislation that would delay the Medicare physician payment cut until 2011. The cut took effect June 1 after the Senate adjourned for the Memorial Day recess without voting on the measure.

“The Senate has turned its back on our nation’s seniors, military families and the physicians who care for them by failing to stop a 21% Medicare cut to physicians before their self-imposed June 1 deadline,” J. James Rohack, MD, president of the AMA, said in a press release. “The ads encourage the public to contact their senators and says: Tell your senators to get back to work and fix Medicare now.”

Legislation containing a fix to the sustainable growth rate (SGR), a key factor in annual Medicare physician payments, has been stalled three times since February.

“This is the third time this year that the Senate has allowed a Medicare deadline to expire,” Rohack said. “The AMA will not sit silent while the Senate fails to fulfill its obligation to seniors and the baby boomers who begin entering the program in just 6 months when the first wave turns 65.”

Military families are adversely affected because payment rates for TRICARE, the military health care program, are tied to Medicare payments.

“The Senate’s failure … signals that Medicare and TRICARE are no longer reliable programs for patients or physicians,” he said. “It is sad and ironic that senators raced home to celebrate Memorial Day without first voting to preserve health care for active duty military members, retirees and their families.”

Rohack echoed various groups’ calls for changes to the SGR or its elimination. “The formula Medicare uses to calculate physician payments is hopelessly broken and in need of repeal,” he said. “The temporary band-aids that Congress has grown accustomed to applying to this issue have grown the problem.”

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