Sequestration hurts Medicare
Marino 22 (Jason Marino, 7-27-2022, "AMA Advocacy Insights webinar series: Medicare payment principles—A vision for reform," American Medical Association, Jason Marino, director, AMA Congressional Affairs. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/events/ama-advocacy-insights-webinar-series-medicare-payment-principles-vision-reform, accessed 7-18-2023)//Prozes
And we lived with them for a long time. And then when COVID hit, it really obviously hit everyone hard, hit the hospitals, hit all the providers hard. And sequestration is a 2% cut across the board for all the Medicare providers. And it hit in a way that they realize that they needed to give some relief.
And so we got some relief in some of the early COVID packages. And then last year when we were facing again, we were told 2020 was the last year but that was it. And we kept pressing. We were told, you're not getting more.
And we kept pressing. And we were told, physicians don't get all of it. Some hospitals get it and they don't need it. And you can't—it's a crude, across the board plus up. And we kept pressing. And we got it at the last minute last December.
But they put it, they did it in a way that for the first three months until March, through March you had a 2% relief. And then through July till July 1, you had 1%. And then we're in July, and now we're at the full 2%. And that was their way, bipartisan, they all shook hands, so to speak and they've all agreed that no more sequestration.
And we always bring it up because it's the context. It's a cut. But it's not politically viable and no one is talking about or seriously considering extending it right now. If things change and COVID gets worse, we can always bring it back potentially. But right now, it's not, unfortunately.