title: The sustainable growth rate: the elephant in the room of deficit reduction.
abstract: The sustainable growth rate (SGR) is a formulaic approach intended to restrain the growth of Medicare spending on physician services. Permanently replacing the SGR will cost $300 billion to $400 billion. Ten years of congressional overrides have contributed to higher Medicare spending on physician services. The absence of a replacement for the SGR leaves the federal government with a significant budget deficit exposure.
authors.affiliation: MedeAnalytics, Inc., Emeryville, CA, USA. ken.perez@medeanalytics.com
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Perez
mesh_terms: D002017:Budgets; D003363:Cost Control; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000639:trends; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics*; D010820:Physicians / Q000191:economics*; D011057:Politics; D014481:United States