[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1923-1924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REFORMS TO THE MEDICARE SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of the 
senior citizens in Pennsylvania's Eighth Congressional District who 
rely on a Medicare system which makes predictable and stable payments 
to their physicians.
  I came to Washington, with one of the largest freshman classes in 
recent history, to make the difficult decisions that for too long have 
been deferred and delayed. I'm proud to have joined a bipartisan group 
of my fellow Representatives last spring in passing a budget resolution 
which addressed the long-term challenges facing Medicare.
  The budget resolution we supported provides fiscal stability to a 
program which will face severe cuts and drastic changes in the future 
without serious reform. However, while these basic reforms to the 
existing system are being debated, we are currently faced with a more 
pressing issue, the solution to which has already earned widespread 
support among lawmakers, doctors, and health care industry groups.
  The practicality of the sustainable growth formula for Medicare 
payments has been a subject of much debate in this Chamber since its 
implementation in 1997. Over the course of the past two decades, 
Congress has deemed it acceptable to provide for short-term, temporary 
fixes to ensure that doctors receive adequate payment for the services 
they provide to Medicare patients. Short-term fixes provide no 
stability or predictability to these important service providers.
  In speaking with a cardiologist in my home of Bucks County, he shared 
his concerns with me over the way Congress has chosen to handle the 
SGR. He told me that every time a short-term extension comes up for a 
vote, he is faced with the possibility of having to lay off employees 
and reducing his practice in the face of potential cuts.
  The constant threat of cuts to the Medicare reimbursement rate 
prevents doctors and hospitals from developing new delivery and payment 
models intended to reduce rising health care costs and denies them the 
flexibility they need to achieve savings through improved care.
  Each time Congress enacts a short-term fix, the scheduled cuts in the 
SGR formula grow deeper and the cost of a full repeal increases. A full 
repeal in 2005 would have cost less than $50 billion. Today's cost is 
upwards of $300 billion. In the next 5 years, if nothing is done to 
correct this predictable crisis, the cost of short-term fixes and the 
total debt accumulated from the SGR will climb to over $600 billion.
  With the drawdown of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 
homecoming of many of the brave young men and women who so proudly 
served our country in those theaters over the course of the past 
decade, we are presented with a unique opportunity to provide for a 
permanent fix to the Medicare physician payments, and to do so without 
adding to our already burdensome national debt. The use of savings from 
the Overseas Contingency Operations fund to permanently repeal the SGR 
formula will provide doctors and their patients with the certainty they 
so desperately need in these difficult economic times.
  As with so many of the challenges facing our Nation today, we are 
presented with two clear options:
  We can choose to ignore the problems posed by the SGR formula to 
doctors, seniors, and to our fiscal health by continuing the practice 
of short-term fixes and forced draconian cuts to hospitals and health 
care providers and apply the savings from the OCO funds elsewhere; or
  We can choose to use these funds to permanently repeal the SGR and to 
set our Medicare system on a new path and provide for long-term 
stability for doctors that promote equality, efficiency, and improved 
health care services for our Nation's seniors.
  I understand that we're presented with another opportunity to provide 
some breathing room for doctors and their patients as part of the 
middle class tax cut bill that looks to achieve bipartisan support here 
this week. Let us use the next 10 months to engage in some honest 
discussion about the real cost and impact of the SGR. Let's get this 
right before the end of the year. And I look forward to working with my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do just that.

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