WASHINGTON (AP) – Officials say House Republicans deepened recommended budget savings from the government’s chief health care program for the poor by about $140 billion in recent weeks to offset part of the cost of higher payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
The maneuver comes at a time Republicans in both houses are struggling with competing priorities, in this case a desire to stabilize the system of provider payments under Medicare, while pursuing a 10-year goal of balancing the budget.
Neither budget documents nor publicly available material related to the doctor fee legislation contain any reference to the decision to reap greater savings from Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides health care for the low-income. Republican officials described the decision on condition of anonymity, saying they were not cleared to speak otherwise.