Budget

The president's plan to save $364 billion under Medicare and Medicaid relies on hard provider cuts and some proposed structural reforms -- a move that long-term care providers promptly protested would cut back benefits and hurt states. The White House budget would cut more than $50 billion from Medicaid -- including $17 billion over 10 years by establishing a new, and already controversial, “blended rate” for Medicaid and CHIP in 2017 and $21 billion by reducing provider taxes.

A coalition of 31 food groups is heading efforts to keep new food fees out of the administration's forthcoming fiscal 2013 budget, urging HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the White House Office of Management and Budget in a Jan. 30 letter to focus instead on securing more appropriations for food safety activities.

There are still plenty of war savings left that could be used to pay for fixing the Medicare physician pay formula, according to the 2012 budget outlook that the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday morning (Jan. 31), bolstering calls by providers for a permanent Sustainable Growth Rate fix paid for with savings from troop drawdowns. Troop drawdowns would save $838 billion over 10 years, CBO says, and keeping physician rates at their current levels for that same period would cost $316 billion, up from a June estimate of just under $300 billion.

House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee Chair Joe Pitts (R-PA) is pushing for a two- or three-year Medicare physician payment fix paid for through Medicare cuts, and opposes the idea of using war savings as an offset although other Republicans appear to be warming to the idea.