[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 49 (Thursday, March 27, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E462]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SUSTAINABLE GROWTH RATE

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                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 27, 2014

  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, Medicare is the federal 
health insurance program for people who are 65 or older, certain 
younger people with disabilities, and people with End-Stage Renal 
Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a transplant).
  For the past 11 years, the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) 
formula has impeded stability in the Medicare program for providers and 
beneficiaries. Congress has to fix the SGR and not continue to do short 
term fixes every 3 or 6 or 12 months. Physicians should and deserve 
equitable reimbursement and not a lower reimbursement rate for the 
services they provide to our seniors. This is one of the leading 
reasons why physicians are leaving their practice. We should repeal SGR 
and establish a legislative fix with a minimum five-year period of 
payment stability for our doctors. This period will allow doctors to 
develop long-term strategic planning for their practice and time to 
invest in electronic health information technology and other medical 
systems to improve access and quality care for their patients.
  Now is the time to capitalize on the lower offset now projected for 
the permanent repeal of the SGR formula otherwise failure to do so may 
cause problems for many providers to see Medicare patients. Ten 
thousand new enrollees enter Medicare each day. Access to physicians 
will suffer for the Medicare population as the gap between payments and 
practice costs continue to grow.
  We needed to pass H.R. 4015 without any poison pill provisions that 
will attempt to take pot shots to diminish the efficacy of the 
Affordable Care Act.

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