Obama’s Fiscal 2012 Budget Proposal Includes Two-Year Payment Freeze

Obama's budget would extend physician payment rates in effect through Dec. 31 until the end of 2013. Without congressional intervention, doctors face a cut of more than 25% starting in January 2012 and an additional cut the following January.

Obama's budget proposal also includes $250 million in grants to states to reform the way medical liability disputes are resolved. The Dept. of Justice would award the grants with the Dept. of Health and Human Services. These would be in addition to the $50 million in funding for similar grants in the health reform law.

The White House budget, as well as any budget adopted by lawmakers, is only a spending blueprint. Any actual 2012 spending requires appropriations approval by the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. The president's fiscal 2012 request includes $465 million to continue implementing the law, including about $330 million to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The proposal also would fund $18 billion for the Medicare physician pay freeze by capping the amount of federal Medicaid funding states can secure by adopting provider taxes. Those caps would not take effect until 2015, one year after full implementation of the health reform law.