Provider Groups Blast U.S. Senate CAP Act

Healthcare provider and consumer groups joined ranks on Wednesday to blast a proposal in the U.S. Senate to impose a cap on federal spending, saying the "real-world" impact of the plan would cut more than $2.7 trillion from critical safety net programs.

The Commitment to American Prosperity (CAP) Act, sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), would limit federal spending to about 21% of Gross Domestic Product and automatically cut across all federal programs in any year where spending is projected to exceed the cap. 

The Lewin Group was commissioned by a group of provider and consumer organizations to analyze the impact of the proposal and found that the CAP Act would cut $4.2 trillion from federal spending between 2013 and 2021, including: $1.3 trillion in Social Security; $859 billion in Medicare; and $575 billion in federal Medicaid payments to states.