Michael Burgess: “The year I took office was 2003. That means my last active year in practice was the year 2002, and missing from this…”

“The year I took office was 2003. That means my last active year in practice was the year 2002, and missing from this graph, the year 2002, is a similar downward bar when doctors received the 5.1 percent what we euphemistically called a negative update. So the actual physicians' compensation for the 5- or 6-year moving budgetary window that we are all so fond of talking about has in fact been much less than is actually shown on this graph. And that is an important point to be made because, as we can see, all of the other aspects that deal with health care reimbursement once a year receive a cost of living, a market-basket update, but physicians' offices are expected to bear the brunt of cost reductions on a year-by-year basis. As you so eloquently pointed out a few moments ago, that is unsustainable for any small business. If you are losing something on every transaction, you do not make it up in volume and stay in practice for very long.”