Today, President Biden signed a stopgap continuing resolution, The American Relief Act (HR 10545), to keep the government funded until March 14, 2025. The bill was passed by both houses of Congress late yesterday, as the deadline to avoid a government shutdown loomed.

All expiring health care programs were extended until March 14, including the important pandemic-era telehealth waivers, National Health Service Corp, Teaching Health Center graduate medical education program, community health centers, a special diabetes program, quality measure selection, Medicare Part D oral antiviral drugs and several hospital programs, including stopping the Disproportionate Share Hospital cuts. The Senate also last night passed a standalone bill that the House passed in March to extend National Institutes of Health pediatric research funding for childhood cancers through 2028. 

The final continuing resolution included $100 billion in disaster aid, but did not include the debt limit extension that had been requested by President-Elect Trump. 

Bill Does Not Stop Medicare Physician Payment Cut

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 6.3% 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, this failure to stop the cuts 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. The California Medical Association (CMA) will be urging Congress to reverse the cuts when they return in January.  Congress must stop these cuts to Medicare in their entirety, as anything short of that is a failure to serve America’s seniors.

Other Bipartisan Health Care Provisions Excluded 

Other previously agreed to health care provisions were excluded from today’s bill as well, including additional funding for community health centers, 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 and transparency reforms, and a hospital outpatient department site of service billing transparency requirement. 

While the new comprehensive Biden prior authorization regulations were already adopted earlier this year, Congress failed to include additional bipartisan, broadly supported reforms in the final bill that would have protected patients from unnecessary care delays and denials.   

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 on Thursday, 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 voted to support the bill to prevent a government shutdown despite their anger over the removal of many bipartisan health care provisions, including stopping the Medicare physician payment cuts. 

Next Steps: The Fight Is Not Over

Congress has adjourned for the year and will be back January 3, 2025. CMA 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.

Despite Congress’ failure to stop the cuts in this continuing resolution, there remains bipartisan support for stopping the cuts. I have been assured that physicians who see Medicare patients and have had their reimbursements cut by nearly 30% in the last 23 years will be taken care of in March," said Greg Murphy, M.D., (R-NC), a physician representative on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, who has championed the bills to stop the Medicare physician payment cuts.

CMA thanks California physicians for your continued advocacy and commitment to improving access to care for Medicare patients. CMA will never stop fighting for the viability of physician practices to protect patient care.

For more details on the provisions included in and excluded from the American Relief Act, see CMA’s brief summary.