Sam Farr: “I would like to add my comments for the record on this Medicare bill that we debate today. Yes, it is a critical bill.…”

“I would like to add my comments for the record on this Medicare bill that we debate today. Yes, it is a critical bill. It will prevent a 10.6 percent cut in payments to doctors who treat America's senior citizens, the wide network of doctors in the Medicare system. In addition, it shores up those payments with a 1.1 percent payment increase in 2009. But though I applaud what is in this bill, I bemoan what is not in the bill. The negotiators on this bill have heard from me--and others--long and loud about the flaws in the formula that determines Medicare doctor fees. In a number of States across the country the formula knowingly and erroneously designates some areas as being rural in nature when they are by all other definitions clearly urban. The result of this deliberate misclassification is to pay doctors at low rural reimbursement rates rather than at their true costs of operating a medical practice in a high-end urban setting. Doctors in my district and 9 other counties in California are paid upwards of 10 to 12 percent less than the law--yes, the law--says they ought to be paid. But because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, won't make the necessary technical formula adjustment in a factor called the Geographic Practice Cost Index or GPCI, these doctors are underpaid. Doctors in Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Monterey, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, El Dorado, Marin, and San Benito counties in California are mistreated by CMS.”