A move is afoot in Congress to use savings from the scale-down of U.S. military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay for the Medicare doc fix.

Spending projections for these military activities – the Overseas Contingency Operations fund – go well into the future and have not been modified even though much of the military activity the fund is supposed to underwrite is now winding down.  Consequently, some members of Congress are interested in using these savings to pay for a new Medicare doc fix.

Such an approach faces legal and procedural challenges, as a Kaiser Health news report outlines.

In addition, two senators, Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), have written to Senate leaders to express their opposition to such a proposal.  Read that letter here.

The current, temporary delay on the 27 percent reduction in Medicare payments to physicians expires at the end of February.  A congressional conference committee is now working to address these and other measures for which permanent decisions were deferred by Congress at the end of 2011.

Boookmark