Cornyn: Short-term ‘doc fix’ might be needed

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested Tuesday that senators may need to pass a short-term deal to prevent physician payments under Medicare from being cut at the end of the month.

House lawmakers unveiled legislation to permanently change the Medicare payment formula in a way that would negate the need for Congress to approve short-term measures preventing the cuts.

{mosads}The House is expected to vote on the permanent “doc fix” this week, but Cornyn said it isn’t clear that the Senate will take up the measure before a two-week recess that begins Friday.

The current deadline to prevent Medicare payment cuts to doctors, March 31, falls during the recess.  

“I don’t whether we’ll have enough time to take it up this week or not,” he told reporters. “My guess is we may need a short-term patch and then come back after the recess and address that.” 

Cornyn offered support for the deal, saying that getting away from short-term patches would be “constructive.”

“Anything we can do to get off of this six month or one-year cycle of patching things, I think is very constructive,” he said. 

Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee slammed the deal Tuesday, but Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) held his fire, saying he would “wait until we’ve seen it… before we starting speculating on what we need to do.”