President Obama’s populist message on taxes was replicated on the health savings side of his deficit-reduction plan, which would cut spending on Medicare and Medicaid by $320 billion over the next decade and $1 trillion in the following decade.
The bulk of the savings would come from companies that provide goods and services to the programs. Payments to drug companies would be slashed by $135 billion by offering seniors in Medicare the same discounts currently mandated for poor people in Medicaid. An additional $42 billion in program savings would be achieved by reducing payments to nursing homes and home health care agencies.
And those are just the major hits taken by health-care providers in the plan, which is already drawing fierce opposition from lobbyists for industries that get whacked. Rural hospitals, big city teaching hospitals, biotechnology firms, and durable equipment manufacturers also would be in for payment cuts under the Obama blueprint.
Major trade associations representing provider groups immediately blasted the proposal, playing the same jobs card the president is using. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association “opposes implementing Medicaid’s failed price controls in Medicare Part D,” the group said in a prepared statement. “Such policies would fundamentally alter the competitive nature of the program, undermine its success, and potentially cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”
