Scully Addresses Medicare Provider Payment Cut, Prescription Drug Benefit During Forum in Washington State
CMS Director Tom Scully on April 22 spoke at a forum in Washington state, where senior citizens and health care providers "challenged his optimistic picture of Medicare," the AP/Seattle Times reports. Discussing the possible addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, Scully said the Bush administration wants to focus on "the poorest seniors first," adding that a "good first step" would be establishing a prescription drug purchasing pool for seniors without drug coverage to receive "at least a discount" on medicines. "Is that going to give you the $15 to $20 copay you want? No. [But] the worst thing that could happen is to get to the end of this year and have nothing happen," he said. Scully also mentioned HHS' nursing home quality pilot program, which will give consumers information on nursing homes for six states. CMS on April 24 will begin advertising the program with full-page ads in newspapers throughout the state. Scully said, "We're trying to get people to start talking about health-care quality."
Funding Formulas
Scully also discussed a 5.4% cut in physician reimbursement that took effect this year. "I don't think you know what the costs are. Doctors are actually having to abandon their practices," one forum participant said. Scully said "he believes doctors will not flee the program," though some Washington physicians have stopped accepting new Medicare patients, the AP/Times reports. But he added, "If we don't fix the formula, we will have a significant problem." The AP/Times also reports that the reimbursement problem "goes deeper" for Washington state, which currently receives an average of $4,800 per Medicare beneficiary per year, compared to a national average of $7,000. Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.), who sponsored the forum, and other Washington legislators are supporting a measure that would "equaliz[e] per-state spending" but expect an "uphill battle against more politically powerful" states with "better-than-average" funding, such as Florida and New York. According to Scully, "The answer is not to give Seattle more, but to give the rest of the country less." But he noted that only Congress could make such a change (Cook, AP/Seattle Times, 4/23).
