Assessing Impact of Medicare Cuts

Floor Speech

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Mr. PANETTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a very pressing issue that not only have we heard about throughout our country but especially in the 19th Congressional District of California, which I represent. It is the decreasing amount of reimbursement rates to Medicare providers. It is an issue, unfortunately, that threatens the care for many senior citizens that I represent.

Now, as the proud Representative of California-19, it is a place where the cost of living, unfortunately, can be pretty high--not just for families, not just for workers, but for doctors, as well.

We in the 19th are already facing challenges when it comes to keeping enough medical providers around to care for our seniors. It is actually a problem throughout California where not only is the cost of living too high, but also Medicare reimbursements are way too low.

Mr. Speaker, 76 percent of California physicians report that Medicare no longer covers their cost to provide care. That puts more than 6.5 million Californians enrolled in Medicare at risk as many primary care doctors are not even taking new part B patients.

A key driver of this is how Medicare isn't reimbursing physicians enough. This past year, Medicare expenses rose 4.6 percent. In the past two decades, payments to providers have declined 26 percent while costs to providers have risen 47 percent, according to the AMA.

What is worse is that when CMS updates payment rates for billing codes under part B, that creates many unsustainable cuts for too many providers and leads to way too many scheduled decreases to Medicare physician reimbursement.

Because of that, we are seeing physicians take on fewer Medicare patients, and we all know what that means--that there are more seniors with fewer healthcare options.

Now, fortunately, thanks to the leadership of Mr. Murphy and other Members of Congress who have come together in a bipartisan fashion for a temporary fix, this legislation would provide an offset for the cuts to providers so that our providers keep getting reimbursed appropriately, so that we can keep providers in our communities, and so that providers can keep serving the needs of seniors.

I am proud to work with Representative Murphy on the Ways and Means Committee for this straightforward fix to this problem, but this Congress needs to act with urgency, as these cuts have already taken effect.

Ultimately, we need a long-term solution to this issue by ensuring that Medicare reimbursement is keeping up with inflation and that the system is streamlined so physicians can continue to care for their patients.

We can't underestimate how Medicare plays an essential role in the health of senior citizens. That is why Congress must ensure that in order for it to continue to be that cornerstone of healthcare, we must provide our providers with the proper reimbursement so that our seniors can get proper healthcare.

I appreciate Mr. Murphy's leadership on this, and I look forward to working with many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do our job by making sure the Federal Government works for our constituents by ensuring that Medicare always allows our providers to care for our senior citizens.

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