Double D.O.A.: The Obama and Ryan Budget Proposals

In March, President Obama released the Administration’s proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Budget. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) portion allocated $1 trillion in outlays and proposed $77.1 billion in discretionary budget authority, $0.8 billion less than the 2014 enacted level and $3 billion less than last year’s request. Of significance to many […]

Congress Makes Significant Progress on Physician Payment Reform

On Feb. 6, 2014, the Senate Finance, House Energy and Commerce and House Ways and Means Committees released bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) physician payment system. The “SGR Repeal and Medicare Payment Modernization Act ” (S. 2000/H.R. 4015), establishes a new streamlined value-based incentive payment system called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or […]