Ready or not here it comes.
The scheduled 21% cut in Medicare’s payments to physicians goes into effect June 1, but wait that is after an extension already granted.
The PPACA was to save money so the doc fix was left out of those numbers on the assumption it would actually be implemented, but it won’t be.
Now there is talk of a long term fix, like for five years. Where is the money coming from? Good question, could it be more taxes or letting tax breaks expire? Or, perhaps we will just add another $250 billion to the deficit. The AMA opposes the five year deal because it only pushes the problem down the road. Really, isn’t that what we did with PPACA, push the cost problem down the road. Politicians are good at that and Americans are good at accepting such ponzi approaches for fiscal responsibility.
The point is not the 21% cut in physician fees because that probably is not justified (and there are consequences of enacting these cuts just as there are with the cuts in the Medicare Part C program).
The point is that politicians continue to play games with the budget and deficit and ignore the consequences of their irresponsible spending.
As the Administration continues to promote all the goodies in the PPACA, Americans continue to put their heads in the sand when it comes to fiscal responsibility.
If you think the housing bubble was a problem, just wait for the deficit bubble to break.
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