Obama Aims For Medicaid, Medicare Cost Cuts

The Hill reports:

President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a deficit reduction framework that aims to cut healthcare entitlement spending by $480 billion by 2023 but falls short of the GOP's bid to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid.

The president is under pressure to tackle the long-term costs of the healthcare programs, which are growing at an unsustainable rate.

House Republicans last week proposed a budget that would largely privatize Medicare and turn over Medicaid to the states, but Obama rejected both approaches in a speech Wednesday afternoon.

Instead, the president favors building on cost-saving measures in last year's healthcare reform law by expanding the role of a payment advisory board that would recommend cuts to reimbursement rates if Medicare costs grow too fast, according to a fact sheet released in advance by the White House.

The president also wants to expand managed care and drug rebates for the 9 million or so low-income seniors and people with disabilities who are on both Medicare and Medicaid.

One of the most controversial proposals from the president is likely to be his call to strengthen the healthcare reform law's Independent Payment Advisory Board. Lawmakers must adopt the board's proposed cuts to Medicare providers or propose their own.

Many healthcare providers — including staunch administration healthcare reform allies such as hospitals — are dead set against the IPAB as it stands, and several Democrats, including Reps. Shelley Berkley (Nev.) and Michael Capuano (Mass.), have already signed on to Republican legislation ending it.