PAMED Statement on Congressional Action Affecting Medicaid and Medicare

Jul 3, 2025, 14:46 PM

Thank you to everyone who sent over 600 messages yesterday in response to the U.S. House of Representatives vote on proposed Medicaid cuts. Having your voice heard in the legislative process, on both the federal and state level, is so important. Direct communications from Pennsylvania physicians are vital in protecting both patient care and local economies. Although we know your voices were heard and swayed some Representatives, the House of Representatives passed language to cut Medicaid. These cuts will shift costs to states and specifically impact Pennsylvania's rural physicians and hospitals at a time when those same groups are struggling to keep their doors open.

Congress also did provide a temporary lift in 2026 Medicare payments as part of this process. However, the version passed removed key elements that connected Medicare updates to the Medicare Economic Index. 

PAMED continues to closely monitor the impacts of these Medicaid cuts on patient care, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to advocate for policies that support the health and well-being of all Pennsylvanians. 

Read the statement from the American Medical Association: AMA: Congress moves health care in wrong direction

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PAMED Statement on Congressional Action Affecting Medicaid and Medicare

Last Updated: Jul 3, 2025

Thank you to everyone who sent over 600 messages yesterday in response to the U.S. House of Representatives vote on proposed Medicaid cuts. Having your voice heard in the legislative process, on both the federal and state level, is so important. Direct communications from Pennsylvania physicians are vital in protecting both patient care and local economies. Although we know your voices were heard and swayed some Representatives, the House of Representatives passed language to cut Medicaid. These cuts will shift costs to states and specifically impact Pennsylvania's rural physicians and hospitals at a time when those same groups are struggling to keep their doors open.

Congress also did provide a temporary lift in 2026 Medicare payments as part of this process. However, the version passed removed key elements that connected Medicare updates to the Medicare Economic Index. 

PAMED continues to closely monitor the impacts of these Medicaid cuts on patient care, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to advocate for policies that support the health and well-being of all Pennsylvanians. 

Read the statement from the American Medical Association: AMA: Congress moves health care in wrong direction

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  1. Robert Oelhaf | Jul 15, 2025

    It is easy to predict that the following will happen:

    Patients will show up, if they survive to get to the hospital, in later and more expensive stages of illness. If they show up in the ER, the hospital will be compelled by EMTALA to provide “stabilizing” care. Which is in the eye of the beholder. Resulting in more cost-shifting from profitable hospital service lines, to financially support the mandated ER services that cash collections from Medicaid coverage of the working poor previously paid for. 
    ER referrals will be harder to do reliably with self-pay patients. With a predictable “revolving door” effect of repetitive ER visits for the same problem. Phone calls to on-call covering physicians will become predictably more and more acrimonious, especially after-hours.
    Even before this happened, it was getting harder to find graduate physicians to fill categorical ER residency spots. This trend will predictably accelerate. We have not yet seen a deterioration in residency applicant quality, but with a shrinking pool to choose from it is logical that this would start happening. 

    I predict the winners will be vertically integrated healthcare organizations and various versions of direct primary care. I predict the losers will be in-network rural office practices and small hospital systems without a large base of commercially insured patients. 

  2. Kevin Robinson | Jul 06, 2025

    Agree. Many people on Medicaid should`ve never been on it to begin with. It`s for those too poor to afford insurance

    and those truly disabled;  not able bodied people between 20-60 and illegal immigrants.

  3. Thomas Mackell | Jul 04, 2025

    Agree. Permitting this abuse of Medicaid funds to able-bodied, employables and to 15-20 million illegal immigrants can only break the system. 

    The states that tolerated the Biden policy must step up and contribute enough to fix the Democrat created mess, painful as it is.

    PMS is wrong to condone a continuation of this abuse.

  4. Anthony Perry | Jul 04, 2025

    I completely support the Medicaid changes in the recently passed Congressional bill. I believe that asking able bodied individuals without dependents to have some sort of community engagement in order to receive taxpayer benefits is very reasonable. I believe that it is inappropriate to use federal government funds to finance medical care for individuals in the country illegally.  

    I completely disagree with the AMA statement on this issue and do not support the AMA.

    I do not believe that the PMS should take a stand on this complex political issue. If the PMS leadership believes that there are Pennsylvania residents who are not receiving needed medical care, they should organize a program to provide needed care on a charitable basis. 

     

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