Clinton Proposing Medicare Savings

President Clinton is suggesting a series of changes that would save the federal government at least $2.1 billion by cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program. In his first proposal for the federal budget beginning next Oct. 1, the president will announce today a package of legislative initiatives that would help the Health Care Financing Administration combat wasteful or abusive practices. A White House official said the plan includes eliminating markups in the prices Medicare is charged for drugs. Under Clinton’s plan, Medicare would pay what a drug costs the provider. A government inspector general’s report found that markups for 22 drugs cost Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars annually because Medicare paid more than twice the average wholesale price for certain drugs--and in one instance paid roughly 10 times the wholesale price.