Congressional Budget Office Projects Cost of SGR Bill at over 175 Billion

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report projecting that H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013, legislation  repealing and replacing the flawed Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, would cost $175.5 billion over ten years.

Last spring, the CBO, the accounting arm of Congress, estimated that repealing the SGR formula would cost $139.9 billion alone. The passage of H.R. 2810 would cost an additional $36 billion to replace the current system with a quality-based payment plan that would update payments by 0.5 to 1 percent each year. 

H.R. 2810 is currently eligible to be considered by the full House of Representatives.  However, the bill does not include any funding mechanism or "pay-fors" to cover the cost of the SGR repeal and the new payment mechanism.