Recent proposals to fix the SGR have ranged in cost from $4 billion in the short-term to $250 billion in the long term.
Short Window for Action
While action on these and other health care issues seem likely this year, there is a short window of opportunity to complete them before election politics come into play, said Dr. Ornstein.
“The conventional wisdom is that in a presidential election year where there's an open contest in the final 2 years of a two-term president, you have about an 8-month window to move things along. That doesn't mean you have to finish everything, but … you better be pretty close to field goal range at the end of that 8 months,” he said.
That seems likely to hold true now this year given that, at last count, at least 26 members of Congress have announced or are considering announcing a run for the White House, Dr. Ornstein said.