Bush Intervened in Medicare Dispute, Sources Say

President Shares Senate's Position On Drug Benefits

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2003; Page A04

President Bush intervened directly last week for the first time in congressional negotiations over the future of Medicare, telephoning Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to warn that he opposed the direction lawmakers appeared to be taking in a bid to provide drug benefits to poor, elderly people, according to several congressional sources.

Bush called Frist (R-Tenn.), one of the White House's closest allies in Congress, shortly after an acrimonious House-Senate negotiating session in which the ranking House member had berated the administration's top health official over the White House's views, the sources said.

The disagreement centers on whether Medicare recipients -- generally elderly or disabled -- who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid should receive the prescription drug benefit that Congress is trying to add to Medicare. Currently, such patients get help in paying for medicine through Medicaid, a government health insurance program shared by the states and the federal government. The assistance varies from state to state.

The Medicare bill passed by the House in June would allow those patients -- about 6.2 million of the program's 40 million people -- to receive the new federal drug benefit. The Senate bill would not. Last Wednesday, several of the Medicare conferees reached a loose consensus in favor of the House approach, despite vehement opposition from the White House and a few Senate GOP negotiators.

The next day, after Bush's call, Frist said at another closed-door negotiating session that he did not favor the tentative agreement and regarded the issue of how to handle those patients an open question, according to participants in that meeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58715-2003Oct7.html