Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 2, 1993 TAG: 9309020146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Clinton administration officials acknowledged they are counting on savings of tens of billions of dollars in the health insurance programs for the elderly and poor to help expand coverage to all Americans.
But the White House said the savings "will come from restraining the growth of all health spending, private as well as public."
"It is wrong to imply that President Clinton would make inappropriate or indefensible cuts in Medicare and Medicaid to pay for health care reform," Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said in a statement issued by the White House.
Clinton met Tuesday and again Wednesday with senior health advisers as he strives to make "the final decisions on the health care plan," White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said.
Clinton intends to present the package to Congress in three weeks, but may reveal beforehand how he intends to pay for it and other key details, aides said.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Clinton's advisers had concluded they can redirect from $180 billion to $240 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years to pay for reforms. The two programs now cost the federal government more than $220 billion annually.
Medicare took a bigger hit in the deficit-reduction bill enacted last month than any other program: $56 billion over five years.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, warned on Wednesday, "Further, massive Medicare and Medicaid cuts without reform of the entire health care system will harm these two key programs and fuel inflation in the rest of the health care system."
But Stark said he supports caps on public and private health care expenditures.
The White House said its reform plan will not shift costs onto the private sector because "for the first time all health spending - public and private - will be placed under the discipline of a budget."
It said Clinton will seek to add Medicare coverage for prescription drugs and home- and community-based long-term care. "The expected savings in Medicare will be rechanneled into those new benefits," it said.
by CNB