The AAMC joined nearly 50 other health care stakeholder groups, including the American Medical Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, and the Federation of American Hospitals, in a Feb. 28 letter to congressional leadership urging them to extend the moratorium on the 2% Medicare sequester until the end of the public health emergency (PHE).
The letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) thanked Congress for enacting the bipartisan Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act (P.L. 117-71) [refer to Washington Highlights, Dec. 10, 2021] which extended the moratorium on the Medicare sequester through March 31. A 1% sequester would return between April 1 and June 30, and the full 2% sequester would resume on July 1. The authors urged leaders to “revisit the extension’s prescribed structure under which sequestration payment reductions will soon resume” and extend the moratorium until the end of the PHE.
“The resumption of the Medicare sequester before the end of the PHE would unnecessarily hinder our caregiving abilities, especially when the emergence of a new, potentially more dangerous and/or contagious variant continues to loom,” the letter noted.
The PHE is currently set to expire on April 16, though it is expected that the administration will extend the expiration for at least an additional 90 days.