VIDEO: Child Explains What’s Wrong With Medicare

The Big Bad SGR Man is back! Last year, the Texas Medical Association (TMA) explained how a defective formula used by Medicare to pay physicians is broken and has been for almost 12 years. It’s jeopardizing care for seniors, Texans with disabilities, and military families. This year, the looming cut caused by the faulty formula, known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), is back. If Congress takes no action, doctors face a 27.5-percent payment cut, threatening health care for thousands of seniors, Texans with disabilities, and military families as more physicians are forced out of the program. The number of Texas physicians accepting all new Medicare patients dropped from 78 percent in 2000 to only 58 percent in 2012. This statistic is frightening. The crisis can only get worse as millions of baby boomers come of Medicare age.



Please call your U.S. representative, and Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison every Tuesday until they stop the cut and agree to fix Medicare so patients can get the care they need. Tell Congress to fix the broken physician payment system and keep doctors for Medicare patients. Click on the Stop Medicare Meltdown box to the right of this blog post. It has a prewritten email you can send directly to your members of Congress.