Health Care and the Obama Budget

Summary:
Please take five minutes to write your legislators, and express your thoughts on how the proposed Obama healthcare budget will affect you and your patients.

Issue:

In releasing his $3.55 trillion fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to comprehensive health care reform. The budget proposal sets aside a reserve fund of $630 billion over ten years that will be dedicated to financing health reform. The reserve fund would come from tax reforms and Medicare and Medicaid reforms, some of which are outlined below. The proposal also assumes nearly $330 billion to account for expected Medicare physician payments over ten years. The budget overview also includes a commitment to health information technology, prevention and wellness and comparative effectiveness research.

It is important to remember that the budget proposal is not legislation; it serves as a blueprint for Congress as it works to develop a FY2010 budget. The Administration’s full budget plan will not be complete until later this spring.

Other provisions of interest to cardiology include:

• Physician payment reform. The Administration believes that the current physician payment system needs to be reformed to give physicians incentives to improve quality and efficiency. As part of health care reform, the Administration would support comprehensive, but fiscally responsible, reforms to the payment formula.

• Hospital readmissions. To reduce preventable readmissions, hospitals will receive bundled payments that cover not just the hospitalization, but care from certain post-acute providers during the 30 days after hospitalization, and hospitals with high rates of readmission will be paid less if patients are readmitted to the hospital within the same 30-day period. This combination is expected to save roughly $26 billion over 10 years.

• Physician-owned specialty hospitals. The budget will address financial conflicts of interest in physician-owned specialty hospitals, although the savings from this are considered negligible.

• Imaging reforms. The proposal assumes a savings of $260 million to ensure that Medicare makes appropriate payments for imaging services through the use of radiology benefit managers.

The ACC has strong positions on the provisions outlined above: The ACC is highly supportive of efforts to reform the payment system to provide incentives for quality and is also working to reduce readmission rates through better care coordination. However, the ACC supports physician-owned specialty hospitals and prefers other methods of addressing imaging utilization than the use of radiology benefit managers. Overall, the ACC strongly supports President Obama’s commitment to reforming the nation’s health care system,   and looks forward to working with the Administration and Congress to implement policies that improve quality and preserve the doctor-patient relationship.

As Congress prepares the budget and further considers health care reform, the ACC needs members to convey these important messages to your representatives. To send a message to your legislators, simply click "Take Action Now" below. You'll be provided with a customizable letter that you can send to your elected officials. We strongly urge you to customize the letter and add your own thoughts about how the proposal will affect you and your patients - your legislators will respond much more to the personal stories you tell. The process will take you less than five minutes, and it does make a difference.

For more information on the President's proposed budget, visit the Quality First Web site. If you have any problems using this system, please contact Justin Beland, Associate Director of Grassroots Outreach, at jbeland@acc.org, or 202-375-6222.