It’s Back on the Table! Medicare Patient Co-Pay for Clinical Laboratory Tests Is One of 27 Cost-Cutting Proposals in Federal Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Document leak earlier this week pulls curtain back on potential cuts to Medicare/Medicaid spending
Spending cuts of between $334 billion and $353 billion over the next 10 years are on the table in the negotiations over the federal debt ceiling. The bad news for the clinical laboratory industry is that restoration of the Medicare patient co-pay for medical laboratory tests is not only on the list of proposed spending cuts, but represents a significant chunk of money—as much as $16 billion during the next decade!
Typical of beltway politics, it was only because of a leak that the list of proposed Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts became public knowledge. On Tuesday this week, Kaiser Health News was one of the first to report the leak of the documents. It also posted a copy of the briefing documents on its website.