Union Leader - Shaheen Sponsors Measure To Save On Medicare Costs

News Article

By JOE MARKMAN
Special to the Union Leader

Taxpayers could save billions in Medicare costs under a measure Sen. Jeanne Shaheen sponsored that was included in the health reform bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., unveiled yesterday.

Shaheen and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, successfully pushed for a three-year pilot program that would help senior citizens with follow-up care after leaving the hospital, significantly reducing the cost to Medicare of re-hospitalization.

A New England Journal of Medicine study conducted earlier this year found that almost one-third of Medicare patients who were discharged from a hospital were re-hospitalized within 90 days, largely as a result of lack of such care.

Medicare spent an estimated $17.4 billion in 2004 on unplanned re-hospitalizations. The pilot program, which will be considered by the full Finance Committee next week, would cost $500 million over three years.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., expressed support for the program.

"It's an important issue," Gregg said in a telephone interview. "This is certainly part of the puzzle in getting health care costs under control."

After Baucus presented his 10-year, $856 billion health care reform proposal yesterday, Shaheen said in a statement: "Health care costs are too high for families, businesses and the economy, and we must find ways to keep what works in our system and fix what doesn't."

Collins said: "Addressing growing health care costs must be at the center of any health care reform legislation."

President Obama, in addressing the nation on health care reform last week, called for such waste-cutting to help pay for extending insurance coverage to most Americans. Shaheen emphasized that some Medicare spending may be unnecessary or may need to be trimmed.

"The Finance Committee was right to include this type of measure so that we can keep what works in our system and fix what doesn't," Shaheen said.

Joe Markman writes for the Boston University Washington News Service.

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