White House pushes plan to attract Medicare PPOs

[Nottingham]

White House pushes plan to attract Medicare PPOs
By AMY GOLDSTEIN
Washington Post



WASHINGTON -- Three months after the House and Senate passed separate bills to redesign Medicare, the White House is prodding congressional negotiators to go further than either measure to offer financial inducements for private health plans to take a bigger role in the program.

President Bush's top health advisers have asked the lawmakers to add an as-yet-unspecified pool of money to boost government payments to preferred provider organizations, or PPOs, that accept Medicare patients in certain parts of the country, congressional and administration sources said.

Administration officials also have proposed to guarantee rural hospitals that they would be paid at least as much to treat older Americans who belong to PPOs as those in the traditional Medicare program.

Taken together, the proposals suggest that White House officials believe the House and Senate versions would not attract enough PPOs into Medicare, the government's health insurance program for the elderly.

more...
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2120656

87 Billion for Iraq and our seniors get screwed out of their Medicare
and the poor out of their Medicaid

The money wouldn't be watched by congress! This is truly scary!

:bounce:

[efhmc]

1. There is really no hope for decent treatment

for any of the regular folks by this administration. That is just the basic fact here.

[revcarol]

2. Subsidizing PPO's just to privatize Medicare.

Really great policies we get out of this administration.