Mandatory spending cuts to Medicare in 2013 will result in large-scale job losses in physician offices and throughout the healthcare system, according to an analysis on the impact of the scheduled federal budget sequester on the entitlement program by Pittsburg-based research firm Tripp Umbach.
As a result of a 2 percent cut to the Medicare program effective over the course of the next eight years (and a result of a lack of agreement between Congress and the Obama Administration regarding alternative spending reductions compliant with the Budget Control Act of 2011), between $10.7 and $16.4 billion will be made in annual cuts to the program, resulting in 496,000 jobs being eliminated in 2013 and a loss of 766,000 jobs by 2021, reports American Medical News.
The study was funded by the American Hospital Association.
