WASHINGTON — Congress agreed Monday to a one- month delay in Medicare payment cuts to doctors, giving a short-term reprieve to a looming crisis over treatment of the nation’s elderly.
The House, in approving by voice vote the bill passed by the Senate this month, postponed a 23 percent cut in doctors’ pay scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. That gives lawmakers a month to come up with a longer- term plan to overhaul a system that in recent years has bedeviled Congress, angered doctors and jeopardized health care for 46 million elderly and disabled.
The payment cuts are the result of a 1990s budget- balancing law that attempted, with little success, to keep Medicare spending in line. With medical groups estimating that as many as two-thirds of doctors would stop taking new Medicare patients if the cuts go into effect, Congress has had to periodically step in to stop the automatic cuts. The Associated Press
