A bi-partisan group in Congress is working on a budget deal
to avoid another government shutdown in January. The Budget
Committee leaders are actually making progress reports Blair Childs from
Premier's Government Relations, who is close to the situation. Rep.
Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Patty Murray (D-WA) are the co-leaders and are
reportedly a few billion dollars away from a two-year deal.
Since health care is such a large part of the budget, they
need a message from us to include: fix the SGR (the flawed physician payment
formula) without impacting hospitals (cuts to hospitals to pay for the SGR);
recognize what we have done as hospitals to slow the growth in health care
spending and don't sunset the expiring Medicare extenders, which include the
technical component for physician pathology services, rural add-on ambulance
provision, therapy caps for Medicare and the outpatient hold harmless
provision.
Hopefully, the holiday spirit will carry forth in Congress and
they can reach some kind of an agreement. Stay tuned.
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