Dear Representative Burgess:

Congress has yet to pass a bill to stop the cut or to come up with a long-term solution for the Medicare program. So now we are right in the middle of the Medicare Meltdown. We know that you, as a physician, understand what we are feeling right now

So now Congress has extended the deadline another 28 days or so, which is the same thing that Congress has done for the past decade ― put off the problem. Our elderly, disabled, and military patients deserve a better solution. We all deserve a better solution. This 28-day freeze is worthless if Congress doesn’t spend the next 28 days devising and passing a permanent new Medicare payment formula.

Without a permanent solution to Medicare’s faulty formula used to pay physicians, the cuts grow deeper each year. In the next few years, physicians could see a cut as deep as 40 percent.

We need Washington to understand that they’re playing politics with our patients’ lives.

If Congress and President Obama truly want health system reform, you must fix the Medicare system. We need a rational Medicare physician payment system that automatically keeps up with the cost of running a practice and is backed by a fair, stable funding formula.