AMA Board of Trustees member Scott Ferguson, MD, explains how the combination of new health care policies under the Trump Administration are accelerating what the AMA views as a growing health care crisis.

President Donald Trump signed his administration’s signature tax-cut and spending bill into law, including a 2.5% pay bump for physicians in 2026 but leaving out larger reforms to tie doc pay increases in the Medicare program to inflation.

Drastic cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will increase wait times, result in more fragmented or nonexistent care, and cause unnecessary deaths and despair.

Just like the December 2024 continuing resolution, the current budget reconciliation bill fails to address the problem of Medicare reimbursing physicians at below market rates.

Medicare Trustees warned today that long-term access to care for seniors is threatened by Medicare’s failure to keep up with the cost of practicing medicine, adding to the drumbeat of similar warnings from policymakers and the American Medical Association.

MedPAC recommends overhauling Medicare updates of physician payments with a permanent, inflation-based formula tied to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI).

Continued federal underpayment of physicians is fueling a looming health care crisis by accelerating the nation’s physician shortage and undermining patient access to care.

Medicare reimbursement rates are well below market value and have failed to keep up with the rate of inflation or the rising costs of running a medical practice. This undercompensation is causing a physician shortage already being felt across the country.

Inadequate payment rates, high resource costs and regulatory red tape are increasingly driving physicians away from working in private practice and toward employment at hospitals or practices owned by private equity firms.