Tonight, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly (366-34) passed a stopgap bill to keep the government funded until March 14, 2025. The bill now moves to the Senate where both Democrats and Republicans have indicated they will support the bill. However, there will be some lapse in government funding until the Senate can act later this weekend. 

All of the expiring health care programs were extended until March 14, including the important pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities. The House bill also included $100 billion in disaster aid, but not the debt limit extension as requested by President-Elect Trump. 

However, in a devastating move for Medicare physicians and patients, the language from the bipartisan deal reached earlier this week that would have stopped most of the Medicare physician payment cut was stripped out of the bill. Therefore, the 2.8% Medicare payment cut will go into effect on January 1, 2025. When medical practice inflation is factored in, this is in effect a 6.4% payment cut to physicians. 

California physicians are extremely angry with Congress for allowing the Medicare payment cuts to happen. At a time when physicians are struggling to keep their doors open and millions of Americans are unable to get timely access to care, Congress is advancing a proposal that jeopardizes patient care. Today’s bill will further push physicians to retire early, reduce the number of Medicare patients they see, or shut their doors entirely – all of which hurts patients. Any future agreement from Congress must stop these cuts to Medicare in their entirety. Anything short of that is a failure to serve America’s seniors.

Other previously agreed to health care provisions were excluded from today’s bill as well, including community health center funding, an extension of the 3.53% Medicare Alternative Payment Model incentive payments, a requirement that Medicare Advantage plans maintain accurate provider directories, pharmacy benefit manager pricing reforms, and hospital site of service billing transparency requirements. 

The more favorable bipartisan House and Senate health care agreement that was on the table earlier in the week was derailed when President-Elect Trump and some House Republicans expressed opposition to the entire Continuing Resolution. House Republicans attempted to pass a second bill yesterday, but it was decisively rejected by the House on a vote of 174-235.

Once the Republicans removed the debt-ceiling increase that President-Elect Trump had requested, Democrats today voted to support the bill to prevent a government shutdown just hours from the deadline – despite their anger over the removal of many bipartisan health care provisions, such as stopping the Medicare physician payment cuts. 

The California Medical Association will be back next year demanding that Congress reverse the 2025 Medicare cut to ensure our patients can get the care they need when they need it.