HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt (shown above with President Bush) was on the firing line last month, hammered by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the health proposals outlined in President Bush's 2009 budget.

Traditional Medicare is inefficient, according to Leavitt, and doesn't have the necessary tools to get up-to-date and keep health spending under control. The president's $3.1 trillion budget calls for Medicare's spending growth to be cut by $12.4 billion in fiscal 2009 and by $178.2 billion over five years. While the budget was judged dead on arrival by those in Congress, it does call for cuts from HME — the home oxygen rental cap would drop from its current 36 months to 13, and the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs would be eliminated — that could come into play once again this year as Congress wrestles with the Medicare “doc fix.”

44,198,844
Total number of Medicare beneficiaries in 2008
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

90%
Charge denial rates found for Jurisdiction A in a fourth-quarter widespread prepay review of negative pressure wound therapy claims. The review also found a charge denial rate of 61 percent in Jurisdiction B.
Source: TriCenturion

21,000
Estimated number of lost jobs lost due to the implementation of Medicare's DMEPOS competitive bidding program
Source: “The Impact of Competitive Bidding on the Market for DME,” Brian O'Roark, PhD, and Stephen Foreman, PhD, JD, MPA

62%
Percentage by which the prevalence of diabetes increased for Americans age 65 and older between 1994 and 2004
Source: Archives of Internal Medicine

7,000
Number of children under the age of 12 over-the-counter cough and cold drugs send to emergency rooms every year
Source: Centers for Disease Control

1 in 5
adults fail to get enough sleep.
Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine