Cong. Trent Franks Statement on "Doc Fix" Bill

Congressman Franks Statement on "Doc Fix" Bill
"Fixing What is Broken in Health Care Must Not Come At the Expense of Breaking the American Economy"

November 19, 2009 - Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) gave the following statement today after voting against H.R. 3961, the "Doc Fix" bill, which would add nearly $300 billion to the deficit, despite Republicans' alternative "doc fix" bill that would not increase the deficit and would provide physicians with a 2% payment rate increase in each of the next 4 years. The vote on today's bill comes after President Obama promised that his health care reform plan would "not add one dime to the deficit." Just yesterday, President Obama stated in an interview with Reuters, "It is important though to realize if we keep on adding to the debt... that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

"Congress is right to be concerned with fixing the Medicare physician payment system, or the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). However, fixing what is broken in health care must not come at the expense of breaking the American economy. With a 10.2 percent
unemployment rate, the last thing we should be doing is piling another $200 billion to the deficit without even attempting to offset the fix, blatantly defying the President's own promise to not add a dime to the deficit through health care reform.

"Furthermore, as someone who represents a district that is home to nearly 70,000 seniors receiving Medicare Advantage benefits, I am keenly aware that this bill will only exacerbate the health care problems being faced by our nation's seniors. Because of this bill, seniors can expect to shoulder Part B premium increases of $50 billion, while at the same time receiving cuts to benefits and services due to the drastic Medicare cuts contained in the Democrats' recently passed health care bill.

"There is no better example of government rationing than the 'reimbursement' policies contained in this bill. Reimbursements are not based on market costs, but on what the government wants to pay for services rendered by physicians, allowing the government bureaucrats to bully America's doctors in a way that, quite frankly, creates a disincentive for doctors to even perform the services Americans need. While Democrats are pretending to stand beside doctors, in reality they are playing politics with some of the most critical, personal decisions a person ever makes.

"While this legislation is purportedly a ‘doc fix,’ it is really a ‘doc trick.’ It's also politically disingenuous since leading House Democrats know that the bill doesn't have a prayer of passing in the Senate, and has in fact been rejected repeatedly in the Senate for the same reasons I am forced to vote against it today.

"In January 2010, scheduled pay cuts are expected to lead to an incredible 21% cut to reimbursements for doctors. Unfortunately, while purporting to fix the problem by wiping away the cuts without a means of funding, this bill only makes the problem worse. The only answer, ultimately, is dramatic Medicare reform-- as Republicans have been proposing for years-- NOT more deficit spending. It is my hope that my liberal Democrat colleagues will abandon these political charades and work to find a bipartisan ‘doc fix’ bill that will actually be paid for and won't leave mountains of inherited debt to the next generation of medical patients and doctors."

NOTE: The Republican "Doc Fix" would:

Provide physicians with a 2% Medicare payment rate increase in each of the next 4 years.

· This would erase the scheduled 21% cut in 2010 and the roughly 5% cuts in 2011, 2012, and 2013. The remaining savings ($26.3 billion) generated by the reforms included in the GOP alternative will be used to address future cuts.

· At a cost of $210 billion, the Democrats’ bill would provide for a 0.8% payment rate increase in 2010, but physicians could see their rates cut again as early as 2011.
Avert the scheduled Medicare physician cuts in a fiscally responsible way by including reforms that would fully offset the cost of the bill. These reforms would:

· Implement comprehensive, meaningful medical liability reform, ending junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine by protecting doctors from overzealous trial lawyers who are looking to get rich quick (savings of $54 billion; H.R. 1086 introduced by Rep. Gingrey);

· Use existing resources available to the HHS Secretary contained in the “Medicare Improvement Fund,” which is designed to improve physician payments (savings of $22.3 billion)

· Create an approval process at FDA for biosimilar products with appropriate patent and market protections that continue to encourage innovation, providing Americans with access to affordable biologics and reducing the cost of health insurance (savings of $5.7 billion; nearly identical to H.R. 1548 introduced by Reps. Eshoo and Barton); and,

· Enact health insurance administrative simplification policies, eliminating inefficiencies that unnecessarily drive up health care costs, by creating greater standardization in health care forms and transactions (savings of $19 billion).


Congressman Franks is serving his fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and is a member of the Committee on Armed Services, Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, Military Readiness Subcommittee, Committee on the Judiciary, Constitution Subcommittee, and is Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.