Quote:
Originally Posted by Pballer
Is anybody concerned about the 500 billion dollar cuts to Medicare that may automatically be coming through the PAYGO Act (sequestration) due to the increase in deficits resulting from this bill?
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From the TaxPolicyCenter:
"ENFORCEMENT
The PAYGO rule has not been enforced consistently. For example, the 1997 budget act put in place a method, known as the SGR (the sustainable growth rate), for determining Medicare payments to physicians. Application of that formula threatened huge cuts in Medicare physician reimbursements. Congress prevented the payment rates determined by SGR from taking effect, but only for one year at a time. While Congress did pay for these one-year fixes, by limiting the fix to one year it did not need to pay the cost of the fix over the full budget window. When the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 replaced the SGR formula with a new system in 2015, Congress waived the PAYGO rules, exempting itself from paying for the entire cost of the new legislation. They again waived the PAYGO rules at the end of 2017 so that they did not have to pay for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
It appears that PAYGO can no longer be considered an effective tool for imposing budget discipline."
I'm not losing any sleep.