The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula that constrains the annual update to the Medicare payment rate is projected to reduce physician payments by 24.4% in 2014, unless Congress intervenes. Congress—that is, the “committees of jurisdiction”—is considering sweeping changes to the payment system, including repeal of the SGR.  The legislators agree that the SGR is a flawed and unsustainable mechanism.  All three committees will have conducted hearings within the four-week period that began on May 7th, when the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held its most recent hearing to discuss how the federal government, along with physicians, could develop new payment policy.  During a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on May 14th, the first such hearing in six years, Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said that it is time “to repeal the SGR once and for all this year.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on...