[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 81 (Wednesday, May 26, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H3841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      TIME TO MAKE A PERMANENT FIX TO THE MEDICARE PAYMENT FORMULA

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves up against another 
deadline for the so-called ``doc fix,'' and this happens because this 
Congress lacks the courage to solve the problem. The fact is, Mr. 
Speaker, the longer we put off doing a permanent fix, the more 
expensive it gets. If the problem had been fixed 5 years ago, it would 
have cost $49 billion.
  Here is an ad that the AMA has been running in some of the papers 
here on Capitol Hill. The cost to fix the bill now is $210 billion, but 
if we wait 3 years, it almost doubles to $396 billion and then balloons 
to half a trillion dollars in 5 years.
  But there is a better way. H.R. 3693 would make a permanent fix to 
the formula Medicare uses to determine payments to doctors, and it's 
critical for our patients because patients cannot get access to a 
Medicare physician because, consider this, Medicare physician payment 
rates are about where they were in 2001. Medical practice costs have 
increased more than 20 percent. What's worse, the current fee pays 
doctors less each year for performing the same procedures.
  I urge the Congress to pass a reasonable Medicare physician fix. The 
time has come and gone.

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