Stop the 1 July 10% cuts to Physician Reimbursements

In three short months Medicare will cut physician payments by more than 10 percent. This cut will be a disaster for both Medicare and Tricare patients, as 60 percent of physicians say they will be forced to limit the number of new Medicare and Tricare patients they can treat. Senator Debbie Stabenow has introduced S.2785 which is an excellent step to preserve seniors' and military retiree access to health care. Please send the following message to your Senators -


As a former Marine and a veteran, I strongly urge you to write your Senator and Congress person to co-sponsorship and actively support S.2785, the Save Medicare Act of 2008. This legislative impacts both seniors on Medicare and military retirees on Tricare. Realize that Tricare reimbursement ratios are keyed to, but may not be greater than Medicare reimbursement ratios.

As you are aware there looms a great health care crisis in our country. A physician operates a small business: a medical practice. While the costs of doing continue to increase, Medicare physician reimbursements have been decreasing according to the defective Sustained Growth Rate (SGR) formula of Medicare law.

This is a problem for patients, military retirees, and their families, because it will force doctors to refuse new Medicare patients, discourages many from being able to invest in new health technology and makes many think about cutting staff or closing their medical practices altogether.

The S.2785 would suspend the Medicare physician reimbursement cuts for 18 months and will not increase the cost of permanently fixing the fatally flawed SGR formula. The 18 month suspension will allow some stability into the system for seniors and physicians forced to make difficult practice decisions because of now scheduled payment cuts. These 18 months will allow Congress time to work on a long-term solution to repair the now broken physician reimbursement system without having to merely delay the cuts twice in one year.

This is not a partisan issue. Please, champion everyone to contact their Congress person to cosponsor S.2785 today.