introduced bipartisan legislation, the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act, to protect seniors' access to care by ensuring Medicare keeps pace with rising health care costs. The bill helps prevent doctor shortages in Medicare by making sure payments better reflect the real cost of delivering care
Protect seniors' access to care by ensuring Medicare keeps pace with rising health care costs and better reflects the real cost of delivering care.
Occurrences
introduced bipartisan legislation, the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act, to protect seniors' access to care by ensuring Medicare keeps pace with rising health care costs
Ruiz helped introduce bipartisan legislation to keep Medicare payments aligned with rising care costs and better reflect the real cost of delivering care.
Evidence
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Raul Ruiz joined Representatives Gus Bilirakis, Jimmy Panetta, and Ami Bera to introduce the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act, described as protecting seniors' access to care by ensuring Medicare keeps pace with rising health care costs and better reflects the real cost of delivering care.
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The press release archive's most recent entries are dated Feb. 18, Feb. 11, Feb. 4, Jan. 8, Dec. 17, Dec. 16, Nov. 20, Nov. 18, and Nov. 14, 2025; no June 8-10, 2026 Medicare-related update appears on the archive page.
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Congress.gov lists Rep. Raul Ruiz as sponsor of H.R.6160, introduced 11/19/2025, with latest action referral to House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means; the tracker status remains Introduced. The official title would provide an update to a single Medicare physician fee schedule conversion factor based on the Medicare Economic Index.
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CMS stated that, by statute, CY 2026 has two separate conversion factors with updates of +0.75% for qualifying APM participants and +0.25% for nonqualifying APM participants, plus a one-year +2.50% statutory increase for CY 2026. CMS did not describe a permanent annual update tied to the full Medicare Economic Index.
Assessments
Ruiz materially advanced the promised policy in the same federal term by sponsoring H.R.6160, the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act, which would replace separate Medicare physician fee schedule conversion factors with a single conversion factor updated by the Medicare Economic Index. However, the bill remained at introduction/referral and had not passed or become law. Existing 2026 CMS payment updates provide only a temporary statutory increase and do not establish the promised permanent MEI-based update that better reflects the real cost of care. This supports partial credit for concrete effort and limited related policy movement, not full delivery.
Ruiz publicly advanced the promise by joining a bipartisan Medicare bill that directly matches the claim, but the evidence shows introduction only and no enactment or finalized policy change. That warrants partial credit rather than full delivery.