PPOs won't prolong Medicare solvency, says CMS. (Medicare Private Plans).

Publication: Medicine & Health

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Thomson Financial Inc.

Adding preferred provider organizations to Medicare, as the White House strongly advocates, won't significantly improve the program's long-term solvency, according to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuarial projection released by the administration June 2. With PPOs operating in a competitive Medicare environment optimally suited to extracting savings, the program would save $22 billion over ten years, a savings CMS Administrator Tom Scully termed "marginal" at a June 2 press briefing.

Medicare as constructed under current law is expected to cost about $3.8 trillion dollars over the next decade....

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