Dingell Statement on House Failure to Pass Permanent Doc Fix Legislation

Statement

Today, Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI12) released the following statement upon House passage of H.R. 4302, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014:

"It is embarrassing that a year of hard work on a permanent replacement for the Sustainable Growth Rate is being thrown in the trash can for yet another politically motivated short-term fix. The American people sent us here to solve our nation's problems, not kick the can down the road yet again. Now is the time for a permanent solution to this annual problem, and the legislation before us today does nothing to give our seniors and our doctors any certainty moving forward.

"Everyone in this body agrees that we need to start rewarding our doctors for the quality of their work rather than the quantity of their work. After months of hearings in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in conjunction with our colleagues on the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance, we put our heads together and came up with a common-sense proposal to pay our doctors under Medicare for the next decade. Everyone agrees that this policy makes sense and should be adopted. We have work to do to find pay-fors for the legislation, but that is not an insurmountable task. Congress should be moving full steam ahead to find offsets for the policy we all agree on, rather than doing yet another short-term patch that will make a permanent fix more expensive and ultimately harder to attain.

"Our constituents are tired of gimmickry and want real results. We should not have to deal with this issue on an annual basis. I urge my colleagues to instead join me in coming together to find the necessary offsets to make a permanent fix to the Sustainable Growth Rate a reality."

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