Budget Bullets: Health Care

How to Trim Hundreds of Billions from Medicare and Medicaid Without Reducing Services

By Kristina Costa

The ballooning cost of health care is a major driving force behind the budget deficit. While the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by $230 billion over 10 years, we can save hundreds of billions more by reforming the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and by reducing Medicare and Medicaid payment errors:

• We can save $112 billion over 10 years by reforming the Medicare prescription drug benefit
• We can save almost $70 billion over 10 years by reducing federal payments for graduate medical education
• Preventing payment errors by Medicare and Medicaid can save tens of billions each year

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