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Senior Citizen Politics
Senate Aging Committee Minority Leader Objects to
Bush Budget Cuts for CMS
Sen. Smith no longer chairman but demanding answers
from CMS
Feb. 17, 2007 – Although no longer committee
chairman, Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon called a hearing of the
Senate Special Committee on Aging and again put the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services on the hot seat. Smith was expressing his concern
about budget cuts proposed by President Bush and the growth of the
Medicare Advantage plans for both drug and health care.
It was the second hearing held by the committee
since Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) became chairman. Kohl, whom did not attend
this hearing – nor did any member other than Smith – held the first
hearing on how private insurance plans and pharmacy benefit managers
negotiate prices with drug manufacturers for government prescription
drug programs and whether these discounts get passed on to consumers.
Senate Special Committee on
Aging Hearing Discusses Medicare Budget Cuts, Premium Payments
At a Senate
Special Committee
on Aging hearing on Thursday, ranking member Gordon Smith
(R-Ore.) expressed concern about proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid
by the Bush administration, CongressDaily reports. Bush's fiscal year
2008 budget proposal includes $75.6 billion in cuts to the programs.
Smith -- the only member of the committee to attend
the hearing -- said that he questioned how cuts to the programs would
"be felt by seniors."
Acting
CMS
Administrator Leslie Norwalk said that the proposed cuts were meant to
be a 10-year projection and that her agency views each year
independently. She said that "the president's budget strives to induce
providers toward greater efficiency with payment policies that increase
the role of competition and create a strong financial incentive for
providers to slow growth through productivity and other improvements in
efficiency" (Talbott, CongressDaily, 2/16).
The hearing also weighed how an "influx of
beneficiaries into prescription drug plans and private health plans in
the Medicare Advantage plan over the past year has led to millions of
more people paying new types of premiums to Medicare -- and thousands of
cases in which incorrect amounts of those premiums are deducted from
monthly Social Security checks,"
CQ HealthBeat
reports.
Smith expressed concern that in cases in which
beneficiaries owe the government money, the repayment could take an
excessive portion out of their monthly Social Security checks, CQ
HealthBeat reports.
Norwalk said that a more gradual repayment of
certain premiums owed by Medicare beneficiaries "makes some sense" in
terms of policy, though she stopped short of total endorsement of such a
repayment system (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 2/15).
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