Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Berman voted to preserve seniors’ access to their doctors by fixing the way Medicare pays physicians.  The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act will permanently reform the Medicare payment system, repealing a 21% cut in payments to doctors scheduled to take place in January and replacing it with a stable system that protects seniors, preserves their relationship with their doctors and promotes primary care.

By fixing this system in a responsible way, the House is ensuring that our seniors have reliable access to their doctors and the primary care they need.  Medicare is a lifeline for America’s seniors and this bill takes crucial steps toward strengthening it and providing the highest quality of care and benefits for our elderly.  It is a critical companion bill to the Affordable Health Care for America Act the House passed on November 7, 2009.

The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act tackles seniors’ main concern – preventing pay cuts that could encourage doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients.  It builds on the historic health insurance reform bill the House passed, which will lower premiums, extend the solvency of Medicare by five years, improve preventive and primary care for seniors, and close the “doughnut hole” drug coverage gap.

AARP and leading senior advocacy groups have given both bills their strong endorsement because they will lower costs and improve care for our elderly citizens.

To underscore our commitment to reduce the deficit, the House attached statutory “pay-as-you-go,” or PAYGO, legislation to the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act before sending it to the Senate.  By joining statutory PAYGO with legislation fixing Medicare physician payments, we are making PAYGO more credible and effective – avoiding the need to waive it for current policies that Congress and the President have already agreed should be extended – and sending a clear message that we are committed to fiscal responsibility.

President Obama and this Congress made a commitment to honest budgeting, and by permanently fixing the way doctors are paid, this legislation will put a stop to a common budget gimmick.  New policies must be paid for.

With statutory PAYGO in place, all new tax and entitlement policies must be offset, restoring fiscal discipline and bringing down the deep deficits that face our nation.  By enacting statutory PAYGO, Democrats are putting an end to the reckless “borrow-and-spend” policies of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress and reinstating the principle that led us from record deficits to record surpluses in the Clinton Administration.