Tagged: Medicare

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) published an op-ed on Politico Tuesday urging President Obama not to agree to any Medicare cuts in the fiscal cliff negotiations. The reason: reforming the health care system, including the way we deliver and pay for health care, will add up to all the savings we need.

Whitehouse writes:

A new study in the journal Academic Medicine provides one of the first looks at a program created by the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to train more primary care doctors. It’s a pretty different model than the traditional one, where the government, through Medicare, makes payments to teaching hospitals to help fund graduate medical education (like a residency program for doctors-in-training).

The Association of American Medical Colleges has launched a new ad campaign, running in newspapers near the sites of upcoming presidential debates, calling for an increase in funding for graduate medical education. The group is trying to draw attention to what it sees as a crisis in the making: the current limit on the number of federally funded residency programs could, it says, lead to doctor shortages. It's just the latest in a series of movements on the GME front.

As part of his effort to separate himself from congressional Republicans, Brendan Doherty held a news conference outside Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket this morning. He offered what his campaign calls, via news release, an “ironclad pledge”:

Confused by that number you keep hearing from the candidates in connection with Medicare – $716 billion dollars? Who’s cutting what? Which side is right? Kaiser Health News‘ Mary Agnes Carey cuts through the campaign clutter for you with an excellent FAQ.