March 27 (Bloomberg) — Congress is racing to beat a March 31 deadline to avoid a 24 percent cut in physician payment rates under Medicare.

Still, there's no sense of panic leading up to the vote — it's accepted that lawmakers of both parties will agree to delay the cuts. It'll be the 17th time they've done so in a decade.

"What we do is not real," said Steny Hoyer, the second- ranking House Democrat, adding that "everybody knows" lawmakers will delay the cuts again. "We want the medical community providers to continue to provide services to Medicare patients, to seniors. So we know we're going to do it."

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