| Hello John, Next year is going to be a BIG one in Washington, with Congress having to deal with several important deadlines on taxes, the debt ceiling, and health care. At the top of Congress’ to-do list is extending the tax cuts that were enacted in 2017. Unless Congress acts by the end of 2025 to extend those tax cuts and, hopefully, make them permanent, more than 60% of Americans will see their taxes go up. So, you may ask, what does that have to do with health care? Well, the process that will be used to extend the tax cuts usually requires Congress to offset the budgetary impact of the tax cuts. In other words, you need lower spending to offset lower taxes. There are several reforms to the health care system we could make that would reduce government spending and make it easier to extend those tax cuts. These reforms would also improve health care — a win-win! Here is a big one that we’ve been pushing in Congress. With a new president and Congress, we’re more confident than ever we can get it done — with your help, of course! I’m talking about the policy that directs Medicare to pay hospital doctors more than it pays independent doctors for the exact same service — even if the service isn’t provided at the hospital. This policy weakens Medicare financially. It also leads to hospitals buying up independent practices. They essentially game the system so they can get these higher payments. That leads to higher prices for everyone, not just those on Medicare.
There is a bill in Congress to end the dishonest billing.
It would stop Medicare from paying hospital doctors an inflated price. Instead, Medicare would pay hospital doctors the same as independent doctors. In other words, the bill would make Medicare payments “site neutral.” According to the experts at the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, adopting site-neutral payments would: - Save Medicare $150 billion.
- Save Medicare beneficiaries another $100 billion in reduced out-of-pocket costs.
- Potentially reduce the deficit by $200 billion if, as expected, commercial insurance adopts similar changes.
That’s nearly a half trillion dollars in overall savings! Will you contact your elected officials and urge them to support site-neutral payments for Medicare? | 
