Budget:
President's Budget Calls For Billions In Home Care Cuts
Published on Fri Jan 08, 2010
Prepare for fraud scrutiny to ramp up under new 2011 proposal. Comprehensive health care reform may be up in the air, but President Obama expects billions of dollars to be stripped from home health agency spending one way or another. The president's 2011 budget proposal released Feb. 1 does not spell out specific Medicare cuts. But it does assume that health care reform such as the bills advanced by Congress in November and December will pass and the included cuts will take place, Obama administration officials are saying. This is bad news for home care providers.The House bill set out $55 billion in home health agency cuts over 10 years while the Senate bill contained $40 billion, notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. The House bill also would cut $8 billion from hospice payments. HHA spending accounts for 3.7 percent of Medicare outlays, while hospice spending is [...]