Medicare Payments to Doctors, the Senate Finance Bill and CBO

By Jacob Goldstein

The Senate Finance Committee’s health-overhaul bill leaves in place a planned 25% cut in Medicare payments to doctors in 2011. Congress probably won’t allow this to happen; lawmakers will likely swoop in, as they’ve donerepeatedly in recent years, and block the planned cuts.

But when CBO does its projections, it doesn’t take into account what Congress is likely to do — it looks only at the laws as written. That means that the much-discussed CBO estimates for the Senate Finance bill will only hold true if Congress allows the cuts in Medicare payments to doctors to go through.

CBO said as much in its estimate this week, writing:

The … mechanism governing Medicare?s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments. … The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.

Of course, plans for Medicare payments to doctors may look far different in whatever legislation makes it through Congress. The big health care bill making its way through the House scraps the planned pay cuts to doctors — which was a key reason that bill won support from the AMA and other doctors’ groups.

Bonus Payment: Read our explanation of the sustainable growth rate, which is supposed to determine how much Medicare pays doctors.

Image: iStockphoto