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PUBLIC
FINANCING

PATIENT PROTECTION AND
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT:

Find What’s Missing. Keep What Works.
Fix What’s Broken.

Find What’s Missing in the PPACA TMA Ask: Repeal the broken SGR. Enact a rational Medicare
physician payment system that works and is backed by a fair, stable
Sustainable Growth Rate: Flawed Physician funding formula. Fix the broken Medicare payment system before
Payment Formula giving additional increases to any other providers.

The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is a flawed funding for- Medical Liability Reform
mula the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services uses to pay Texas has gained more than 21,000 new physicians to take care
physicians for the care they provide to Medicare patients.For the
past decade, physicians have faced double-digit pay cuts because of Texas patients since 2003. Of these, around 5,000 can be attrib-
of the flawed SGR. Only emergency congressional intervention uted to Texas’ medical liability reforms. Many of these new physi-
stopped cuts each year. The uncertainty surrounding the Medicare cians practice high-risk specialties such as emergency medicine,
program, especially in this time of change, makes it extremely dif- neurosurgery, pediatric intensive care, and pediatric infectious dis-
ficult for physicians to plan for the future. As a result, fewer physi- ease. Texas patients now can get more timely and convenient care
cians are taking new Medicare patients. The new health care law when needed. Twenty-one rural Texas counties have added at least
did not address this problem. one obstetrician since the passage of Texas’ medical liability reform,

20 San Antonio Medicine • December 2017