No ruckus about Medicare cuts in sequester

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hospitals, doctors and other Medicare providers are on the hook for a 2 percent cut under looming government spending reductions.

But they're not raising a ruckus. Why not?

The reason is the pain could be a lot worse if President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress actually did reach a big deal to slash federal deficits.

The automatic cuts taking effect Friday reduce Medicare spending by about $100 billion over a decade.

But Obama had put on the table $400 billion in health-care cuts, mainly from Medicare. And Republicans wanted more.

What the industry was really worried about was a huge deficit bill that could target Medicare for $400 billion or $500 billion.