"Doc Fix" Plan Hurts Patients: NCPA

"Doc Fix" Plan Breaks Congress' Promise to America
MACRA Doubles Down on Federal Control, National Debt: NCPA

Dallas, TX (April 13, 2015) -- Signing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act into law would break the promise of fiscal responsibility made by both Republicans and Democrats and add $500 billion to the national debt over the next twenty years, warns National Center for Policy Analysis Senior Fellow John R. Graham in a new report.

"The so-called Medicare 'doc fix' being considered by the Senate this week is the wrong way to reform Medicare," says Graham. "Patients will suffer as doctors become even more burdened by the federal government's rules and regulations on how they deliver care."

Graham offers three options to reduce the shortcomings of MACRA and open the door for effective Medicare reform:

• A two-year doc fix, paralleling the extension of the Children's Health Insurance Plan in MACRA.
• Including MACRA in the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) scorecards, requiring the president to pay for it with other funds.
• Finding offsets to pay for the $141 billion in MACRA spending that is not yet offset.

"Republican politicians' endorsement of this bill is especially disappointing, as they have been promising for years that they will replace Obamacare and its cuts to Medicare with patient-focused reforms," admonishes Graham. "Instead, they have chosen to pour more money into a so-called "doc fix" that actually doubles down on Obamacare's increased bureaucratic interference in the practice of medicine and piles $141 billion onto the national debt over the next decade."

"If passed by the Senate as written, MACRA would immediately expose the Senate and House budget resolutions, which promise deficit reduction, as a charade not to be taken seriously," adds Graham.
Fix The Flawed Medicare Doc Fix: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st364 

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