up to a 2 percent across-the-board reduction in payments to service providers.

Medicaid, which serves the poor, would not be cut. The main subsidies for expanding health insurance coverage under President Barack Obama's overhaul would also be protected.

The fallback option would save supercommittee members from having to pick winners and losers among important financial constituents.

"They don't have to choose among their children," said Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, an economic analysis firm. "They can say, 'This is what the law says.'"

The Senate members of the panel are Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Patty Murray of Washington and John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republicans Jon Kyl of Arizona, Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Chip Somodevilla
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Getty Images, file

Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wasfrom 10 patients who had been pathologically diagnosed with HCC and undergone a hepatectomy between April 2016 and December 2016 at the First Affiliated Hospital of the Anhui Medical University (Hefei, China). In cohort 2, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples from 61 HCC patients who underwent initial surgical resection between February 2008 to December 2012 were collected randomly from the Department of Pathology at the First Affiliated Hospital of the Anhui Medical University. Informed consent was obtained from all patients and the study was approved by the Biomedical Ethics Committee of Anhui Medical University. Pathological staging was performed according to the international staging system \[[@b12-medscimonit-25-2079]\].

*In situ* hybridization (ISH) staining
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ISH was performed according to the manufacturer's protocol (ISH kit, Boster Bio-Engineering Company, Wuhan, China). ISH staining was scored by 2 independent