Will the sequester's cancer cuts get fixed?

Medicare said Thursday that it does not have the power to reverse automatic spending cuts that are causing cancer clinics to turn away thousands of patients. "We are unaware of any authority that could exempt Part B drugs from the sequestration requirements," Medicare spokesman Brian Cook said. The sequester is a series of across-the-board budget reductions that Congress allowed to go into effect when it could not agree on a spending plan earlier this year. As an unexpected consequence of the sequester's cut to Medicare, cancer clinics are finding that they cannot afford to continue administering some chemotherapy drugs.