WASHINGTON--CMS Administrator Mark McClellan told lawmakers last week that giving patients more options for where they receive long-term care--including in the home--is one way to address the government's skyrocketing health care costs.

"We are way past the stage of talking about this. We have evidence that home- and community-based health care is clinically and cost-effective, as well as preferred by most beneficiaries," McClellan told the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee at a hearing on Wednesday.

The CMS chief also called on Congress to end Medicare's "institutional bias," because the program pays for nursing home care but not community-based care. "Beneficiary control means better quality and more people served for the same or lower cost," he said.

McClellan's comments seem to indicate an acknowledgement from government officials that home care could be part of the solution to the nation's health care crisis.

Just last month, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt said at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures that home care is "radically more efficient" than the alternatives and called for more home and community-based care in Medicaid.