GOVERNMENTDeficit could force Medicare reductionsLawmakers haven't developed a plan to slash the budget but say Medicare will be a target. The impact on doctors is unclear.By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Dec. 13, 2004. Washington -- Just as physicians are preparing a fight to prevent several consecutive years of Medicare payment cuts, fiscal conservatives in Congress are thinking about putting the program's budget under the knife once again. With the federal budget deficit exceeding the $400 billion mark in fiscal year 2004, some lawmakers are eyeing entitlement program reductions in their quest to restore fiscal restraint to the government. President Bush has vowed to cut the total deficit in half over five years. Leading the White House's charge on Capitol Hill will be Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.), who will leave his current post as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in January to head the Senate Budget Committee. "Anybody who looks at the numbers recognizes that we do have to adjust the deficit," Gregg said after announcing his job change. "That means we need to make difficult decisions on the spending side of the ledger." The senator has not specified where he will attempt to find savings over the next several years, but he acknowledged that Medicare will play an important role. "The Budget Committee is one of the most significant pressure points in the Congress where you can get a handle on spending both on the discretionary side and on the entitlement side and where you can have an impact," Gregg said. "This has always been an issue for me, and I intend to aggressively pursue it." Bill Hoagland, who counsels Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD (R, Tenn.), on budgetary issues, also has stopped short of predicting a specific course of action for the upper chamber. But Medicare is going to be a key issue "because you go where the money is," he said. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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