Widows make up almost half of the 2.4 million Medicare beneficiaries whose income qualifies them for the program's comprehensive drug benefit for low-income Americans but who are ineligible because of other financial assets, says a study sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Based on income alone, about 15 million people qualify for the low-income benefit, about one million of whom live in nursing homes. Widows and widowers make up 43 percent of those who otherwise would qualify for the benefit but who are ineligible because of non-income assets. Widows make up 93 percent of this "widow and widower" population. Read more »
Proposed options to prevent a scheduled Medicare physician payment cut over the next five years range between $10 billion to $50 billion, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Medicare payments to physicians are scheduled to decline by 5 percent in 2006 unless Congress takes action to stop the cuts. Earlier this month, an American Medical Association survey found that 38 percent of physicians said they would reduce the number of Medicare patients they will accept if the cuts proceed as scheduled. Read more »
Dramatic reductions in the number of bed sores suffered by nursing home patients and improved use by doctors' offices of computer technology to treat patients are two of the many goals outlined by Medicare in a new "scope of work" to improve the quality of care in the program. The billion-dollar program sets goals for Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations, or "QIOs," for the three years starting in August. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) invited bids April 7 from QIOs to carry out the quality improvement work outlined in what insiders call the "eighth scope of work," the eighth such plan in the history of Medicare. Read more »
A new report by the Congressional Research Service on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) should be music to the ears of the Bush administration — some of it sweet, some of it discordant. The report finds a "burgeoning market" for the accounts, which are much touted by the White House and by many congressional Republicans as the answer to fast-rising health spending in the U.S. and to widening coverage of the uninsured. Read more »
Budget writers negotiating the fiscal 2006 budget resolution are mulling a split-the-difference solution to the gulf between the House and Senate over the level of mandatory spending cuts to be included in an upcoming budget reconciliation bill. House and Senate GOP aides said Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., — under pressure from the House to produce far larger cuts than passed by the Senate — has told his House counterpart that the Senate would consider cuts of no more than $43 billion over five years from mandatory spending programs, such as agriculture, Medicaid, and student loan subsidies. Read more »