http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/722694 May 28, 2010 — With Congress failing to stop a 21.3% cut in Medicare reimbursement for physicians that takes effect on Tuesday, June 1, organized medicine is dialling up its rhetoric from disapproval to disgust.
Physicians have been chiding lawmakers for months for putting a series of short-term band-aids on the Medicare reimbursement crisis instead of curing it for good. However, all that remonstration did not seem to make any difference. Members of the House and Senate left Washington, DC, today without averting the pay cut — the third time they have done so this year. Physicians are voicing the same criticisms of Congress as before, except they are voicing them with more vehemence.
"Internists and patients are rightly angered," said J. Fred Ralston, Jr, MD, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP). Larry Wickless, DO, president of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), described his group as "frustrated and angry." Ditto for J. James Rohack, MD, president of the American Medical Association (AMA).
"America's physicians are outraged that Congress has deserted patients by failing to address this year's Medicare cut before the June 1 deadline," Dr. Rohack said in a written statement.
What particularly galled organized medicine was the announcement by Senate Democrats yesterday that they would not act on any House legislation to postpone the cut until it reconvened June 7 after the Memorial Day recess. The House today approved an extension of the pay cut to January 1, 2012, and it also approved a Medicare pay hike of 2.2% for the rest of 2010 and 1% for 2011, but senators were already in the process of flying home for Memorial Day cook-outs.
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