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
