Senate Democrats Question HHS Secretary Leavitt About Medicare Provisions In President's Budget Request
Leavitt also "drew battle lines with Democrats over the future of Medicare" and "made an effort to pre-empt Democratic efforts to overhaul" Medicare Advantage, CQ Today reports. He said, "We do need, over time, to bring this into a place where the initial incentives we provided nationwide are rationalized," adding, "If I could spread that into a larger competitive atmosphere ... we would see the same types of downward pressure, and I think they would not only come down to a level of fee-for-service, I believe they would go below" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 2/6).
Leavitt also said that Medicare's "price-setting" environment contributes to increased health care costs, adding, "I believe if consumers were informed with information about quality and cost, they would make decisions that drive quality up and cost down." Leavitt said private Medicare Advantage plans are "a good opportunity" to use market forces to drive costs down (Johnson, CongressDaily, 2/6).
In addition, Leavitt said that, "if I could present a budget that would say, let's take a look at what would happen if beneficiaries in Medicare had quality ... if they had electronic medical records, if they had price comparisons, if they had choices, I believe that we would begin to see prices fall and quality go up. We can't score that." He added, "We need more than a change in budget; we need a change in policy" (CQ HealthBeat, 2/6). Lawmaker Comments
Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, "You've asked for huge, draconian cuts that this Congress is not going to enact," adding, "How can we have an honest-to-goodness discussion when your budget seems based on ideology?" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 2/6). In addition, he said, "You want health care privatized and you want to cut government. That's what I see and that's a nonstarter here in terms of a discussion," adding, "The cuts to Medicare, $182 billion, smacks of meat-ax cuts." Baucus said, "Where do I see in your budget the effort to cut health care costs? We're not going to solve this problem by whacking the bejeebies out of Medicare." Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, "I believe you care about the poor and the less fortunate, but this budget does not care about the poor and less fortunate" (CongressDaily, 2/6). SCHIP
During the hearing, committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned Leavitt about provisions in the budget request that would increase SCHIP spending by $19.3 billion over five years. He said, "The fact that the president said we only needed $5 billion carried a great deal of credibility with about three-fourths of the people on the Republican side of the aisle," adding, "We didn't get the bipartisan compromise that the president could sign, and we would have been able to do that if this had been acknowledged a year ago." Leavitt said that the Bush administration had recalculated the demand for SCHIP. He added, "We have better estimates now" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 2/6). Health Care for Veterans
In other budget news, veterans groups and some lawmakers have raised concerns that the budget request underestimates the number of soldiers who will return from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and receive care in the Department of Veterans Affairs system, CQ Today reports. The budget request estimates that 333,275 soldiers who return from the wars will seek care at VA health care facilities in FY 2009, but some critics maintain that the estimate does not account for a "wave of troops" who will return this year, according to CQ Today.
Joe Violante, legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, said, "The numbers that they're projecting of veterans who will come to their system for their health care needs ... seem to be lower than what we were led to believe initially." According to VA spokesperson Alison Aikele, the estimates in the budget request are "mainly based on actuarial estimates that are updated annually with more current information that is available with each update" (Yoest, CQ Today, 2/6). Opinion Piece
"The rising cost of Medicare is troubling and must be addressed," but "isn't it interesting that Bush sees this middle-class entitlement as the budgetary outrage that needs his immediate attention?" syndicated columnist Froma Harrop writes in the Providence Journal.
Meanwhile, the budget request "would make deep cuts" in CDC spending and "eliminate a $301 million program that trains pediatricians at children's teaching hospitals," Harrop writes. She concludes, "That's stuff for the ordinary folks. The have-mores will do just fine" (Harrop, Providence Journal, 2/7).
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Senat Democraþilor întrebare HHS secretar Leavitt despre Medicare dispoziþiile în bugetul cererea Preºedintelui - Senate Democrats Question HHS Secretary Leavitt About Medicare Provisions In President's Budget Request - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate