Congress Failed Our Nation's Health Care Providers by Allowing Massive Medicare Cuts to Take Effect That Will Harm Seniors

Continuing resolution to fund the government disregards need to protect patient access to care

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Dec 02, 2021, 10:53 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Congress is on the brink of allowing massive Medicare cuts to go into effect at the start of the new year based on the language of the continuing resolution released today, according to the Surgical Care Coalition. Congress's failure to address these cuts harms our nation's seniors and ignores the sacrifices physicians and health care providers have made during the pandemic.

"Surgeons and other health care providers have been working day in and day out for the past two years amid the worst pandemic in a generation," said American College of Surgeons Executive Director David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS. "Instead of supporting health care providers, Congress chose to slash Medicare payments and harm the ability of providers to care for our nation's most vulnerable."

Members of the Surgical Care Coalition reiterated how Congress's failure to stop these Medicare payment cuts will stress our health care system and have devastating consequences for patients, including delays to care and decreased access to providers.

With less than a month until the cuts take effect in the new year, Congress must act now to protect patients and the care they deserve. Stopping these significant cuts will continue to stabilize the health care system while policymakers consider solutions to the ongoing structural problems with Medicare's broken payment system.

Congressional leadership has received several urgent calls to stop the cuts. A bipartisan majority of House members wrote a letter to House leadership urging them to stop the cuts, and Reps. Ami Bera, MD (D-CA) and Larry Bucshon, MD (R-IN) introduced the bipartisan Supporting Medicare Providers Act of 2021 (H.R. 6020) to extend the 3.75% update to the conversion factor for an additional year. Unfortunately, these calls have fallen on deaf ears.

About the Surgical Care Coalition

The Surgical Care Coalition advocates for access to quality surgical care for all Americans. The Surgical Care Coalition is comprised of 13 surgical professional associations that proudly represent the more than 150,000 surgeons working across the country with a common goal of improving the quality of care, and quality of life, for all patients.

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SOURCE Surgical Care Coalition