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Obama’s budget targets healthcare improvements

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, May 8, 2009

In presenting his $3.4 trillion budget plan Thursday, which includes provisions that will cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, President Barack Obama proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage payments to private insurers, expansion of health information technology, reduction of healthcare fraud, waste, and abuse, and improved healthcare quality.

Obama said the government will save $22 billion annually starting in 2012 by eliminating Medicare payments to private health insurances "as a broader effort to reduce healthcare costs." The Medicare Advantage program is slated for payment cuts of between 4% and 4.5% in 2010.

Medicare Advantage supporters are obviously not pleased with the announcement.

"If this amount of money is taken out, it will have a significant impact on benefits and premiums that 10 million seniors currently rely on," says Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents 1,300 companies.

Though AHIP applauds the president for making healthcare reform a top priority, Zirkelbach says, "We do not believe that seniors in Medicare Advantage should be asked to fund a disproportionate share of the cost to reform the healthcare system."

Read the full story by HealthLeaders Media’s Cheryl Clark.

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