WASHINGTON – Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin today introduced the All-Payer Graduate Medical Education Act of 2001, HR 2178, a bill that would create a Trust to fund the training of medical professionals in the United States. The Trust would reduce the burden Medicare bears as the primary funding source for graduate medical education (GME) in the nation's academic medical centers.

Rep. Cardin's bill, first introduced in 1998, establishes a Trust funded by a 1% assessment on private health insurance premiums. Teaching hospitals would receive $4.5 billion in additional revenues, while the Medicare Part A Trust Fund costs would be reduced by approximately $1.5 billion annually. Currently, America's academic medical centers depend almost solely on Medicare, which does not fully fund the costs of training residents. The current formula for GME payments is based on a cost reporting system established nearly 20 years ago.

"The current funding mechanism is inadequate and threatens the solvency of Medicare. This bill establishes a fair, national support system for graduate medical education, " said Rep. Cardin, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. "The tremendous medical advances developed in our teaching hospitals benefit every segment of society. My bill helps maintain the high quality of health care Americans depend on by distributing the funding obligation fairly among all Americans."

The Congressman represents Baltimore, Maryland, home to two of the finest academic medical centers in the nation – Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center. His proposal would increase accountability for indirect GME funds by requiring hospitals to report annually on their efforts to improve patient care, research, and community service activities. The measure would also address physician workforce issues by directing the Secretary of HHS, working with the medical community, to develop a plan to reduce the number of first-year residences to 110 percent of American medical school graduates by 2007.

The All-Payer Graduate Medical Education Act also expands eligibility guidelines for Medicare disproportionate share (DSH) payments, increasing funding to hospitals that serve the greatest number of indigent patients. Finally, to guarantee support of other health professions, the bill directs $300 million toward the funding of graduate training programs for nurses and allied health professionals.