AAHomecare Steps Up Efforts to Extend Medicare Sequester Moratorium

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 10, 2021)—With the moratorium on the 2% Medicare sequester cuts currently set to expire on March 31, the American Association for Homecare and health care sector coalition partners have redoubled efforts to engage legislators in support of extending the pause on these cuts.

As a result of this outreach, an updated bill that would extend the moratorium throughout the end of 2021 may be introduced as early as this week. 

The new measure is expected to also waive further potential Medicare cuts, starting in FY 2022, stemming from the application of 2010 Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) legislation that triggers automatic cuts across a range of federal programs to cover deficit spending increases—in this case, red ink incurred via the recent $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Under the current scenario, the broadly applied Medicare cut for health care providers would be 4%. More details on the mechanics of the PAYGO cuts are explained in this recent Bloomberg article.

AAHomecare is looking for industry champions to ask their legislators to support efforts to extend the Medicare sequester moratorium until the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and waive the punitive PAYGO requirements. The association’s recent blog post includes a simple message you can email House and Senate health care staffers on the issue.

Visit aahomecare.org for more information.