Clinton Considering Cost Controls

President Clinton’s health care advisers are preparing a list of reform options that include various forms of short-term cost controls, including a possible extension of Medicare rate regulations to the private sector, according to a report in today’s Washington Post.

The imposition of mandatory controls, a step not taken since the Richard M. Nixon Administration froze wages and prices in the early 1970s, is among a range of options cited in White House documents obtained by the Post. If approved, the controls would be phased out once a long-term system of “managed competition” began to produce results.

Other options under consideration include setting per-patient rates for managed care networks, eliciting voluntary price controls from private industry and making it easier for states and the private sector to put more people into managed care arrangements, the newspaper reported.

The Post quoted unidentified sources who said the Clinton Administration is more likely to prefer caps on increases in drug prices and insurance premiums than cost controls on physician fees.

The Administration is not expected to settle on specific proposals until shortly before its scheduled delivery of a comprehensive health care reform plan in May.