Medicare payments to doctors were supposed to fall by 21% at the start of this year, but Congress passed a last-minute, two-month patch to block the cuts. The Senate recently passed a pay-as-you-go law that would require balancing all new spending with tax increases or spending cuts, but the legislation included a loophole that states Congress can allocate an additional $82 billion for physician payments without having to find new sources of revenue or savings. The move could be enough to block scheduled pay cuts for five years, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports.
