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White House rejects proposal to release Medicare data

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, April 14, 2006

The nation's largest employers have asked the White House to release government data on the cost and quality of healthcare that physicians and hospitals around the country provide.

In recent week, President Bush has toured the country, urging private insurers to disclose this information to "empower consumers." But Medicare, the largest insurer, has turned down a similar request from the Business Roundtable, whose member companies provide coverage for more than 25 million people.

Employers hope to use the information to rate the quality of physicians and curb health costs. This is the same goal the president has focused on in recent months. So the refusal to release Medicare data is confounding, according to the Business Roundtable.

Administration officials said they were constrained by court rulings that limited the amount of Medicare information they could release. The Business Roundtable, however, says those rulings are no longer relevant.

Medicare handles more than a billion claims each year.

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