Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

 Lawmakers' hopes to spare Medicaid may be too little, too late

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing Feb. 16, the panel "had more ideas come to the fore" on how to save money in Medicare "than at any session I've been at." So said top-ranking Budget Democrat Kent Conrad (ND) at a Feb. 17 hearing at which the panel also sought saving opportunities for Medicare and Medicaid.

In the end, however, the budget panel will produce only "the big number" - the amount of savings that they'll direct the Senate Finance Committee to produce through cuts to Medicare and/or Medicaid in 2005 - said Chair Judd Gregg (R-NH). "Finance deals with the specifics," said a somewhat rueful Gregg, who, like Conrad, seems to be itching to develop specific proposals to rein in spending on the two big health entitlement programs.

Despite the Senate budgeteers' ambitions, however, it still seems likely that Gregg's budget plan will follow the Bush administration's in directing Finance to reap all health-entitlement savings to Medicaid, and leave Medicare alone.

"I happen to think we should address Medicare. But I may be a voice in the wilderness," said Gregg. "And I have to produce a budget ... so I have to get votes."