Dive Brief:
- House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are still in negotiations over a congressional 'doc fix' deal that would repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and extend the Children's Health Insurance Program for two years.
- The total cost of the deal is expected to exceed $200 billion; it is anticipated that only around $70 billion will be offset by spending cuts.
- Failure to reach an agreement by the March 31 deadline will result in a 21.2% reduction in Medicare payments to physicians.
Dive Insight:
It is likely that the two sides will again end up reaching a temporary agreement; to date, they have already come up with 17 short-term fixes. Although healthcare organizations are largely in favor of a permanent repeal of the sustainable growth-rate formula, they will also be looking closely for any potential pay cuts that may be used to fund it. "We look forward to what we understand is sort of cooking between the leaders in the House to see what they're going to put on the table," Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, told Modern Healthcare on Thursday. "It's an artificial fiscal problem created by Congress that desperately needs to be cured."