Last week, President Obama permanently repealed Medicare's flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). SGR was passed into law in 1997 to control physician spending, but it has failed to work. Since 2003, Congress has spent nearly $170 billion in short term patches to avoid unsustainable cuts imposed by the SGR.
This is big progress: while the old formula linked doctors’ pay with economic growth, the new formula will focus instead on paying for quality of care.
It took 16 years for all 535 Members of Congress and every healthcare provider group in the nation to pass this much needed legislative reform.
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