Congress may have to come up with at least $121 billion to kill a perennially postponed Medicare payment system change.
Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have posted estimates of implementing two Medicare reimbursement fix bills, H.R. 2810 and S. 1871, on the CBO website.
Lawmakers created the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) physician payment system in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
BBA drafters wanted to hold increases in Medicare physician reimbursement rates to the rate of increase in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).
But health care costs have almost always grown faster than GDP, and Congress has never mustered the will to let the SGR shift take effect.