In a positive sign in the long-term project of overhauling the Medicare physician payment system to make it more sustainable for doctors and the nation, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said he is “definitely interested” in examining the feasibility of such reform.

“I’m definitely interested, because I remember those ‘cliffs’ when I was in Congress,” Becerra said in a briefing with a group of health reporters, as quoted in MedPage Today, in reference to his days as a congressman and the annual ritual of voting to avert mandated Medicare physician pay cuts.

“We always had to deal with those, and you’d never want professionals … thinking that there’s another profession for them down the line because they’re just not making ends meet where they are,” Becerra said. “So we’d like to be supportive.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.