President Bush Declares to Fix Medicare Physician Payment Mistake

     President Bush declared, in his recent budget proposal, to fix the Medicare Physician Payment problem.   Physicians took a 5.4 % cut in 2002 and are scheduled to take another 4.4% cut, effective March 1, 2003.   The President acknowledges that America's seniors should not pay for the government's mistake and proposes to adjust the formula to use actual data instead of estimates in current and future updates.  The adjustment would fix the error and get Medicare physician payments back on track for the future.  Physicians are encouraged to continue to write to their Congressman about the Medicare payment problem.