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COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Financial Inc.
With Congress in search of budget savings this year, it's clear that one of public health care's two 800-pound gorillas--Medicaid--is on the table for surgery. The White House laid out some specific economizing proposals for Medicaid in the budget it issued Feb. 7, although officials are careful to say that their primary aim is program improvements, not cost cutting.
* Will Medicare see cuts? In the end, probably not, but, for the moment, the struggle intensifies. The Bush budget is mum on Medicare cuts. Observers note, that since the administration is committed itself to cutting guaranteed Social Security benefits in 2005m it likely viewed it as too politically risky to tinker with another major program for seniors.
In addition, if Medicare were on the table for cuts, Democratic lawmakers would go after two provisions that Republicans see as key to making the program more market-based. Democrats want to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to bargain directly with pharmaceuticals manufacturers on drug prices, rather than leaving negotiations to a number of private companies. Democrats also would cut payments to Medicare Advantage private health plans, because the payments currently run higher than what Medicare pays for fee-for-service beneficiaries.
To avoid complicating CMS's already Herculean task in launching the drug benefit next January, as well as to avoid Democratic attempts to trim back health plan pay and replace private-sector with public-sector bargaining, the Bush administration and congressional Republican leaders who developed 2003's Medicare Modernization Act are pushing hard to keep Medicare out of
However, one Republican senator who will figure heavily in this year's fiscal debates, new Budget Committee Chair Judd Gregg (NH), has been...
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