Budget Analyst: Bulk Of CBO's $62B Cut In Future Medicare Spending Is For 'Bad Reasons'

Budget analysts say an honest accounting of the cost of annual fixes to the Medicare physician fee schedule shows that America's debt likely will grow much faster than Congress' official projections, and lawmakers therefore must abide by pay-as-you-go rules and reform entitlement programs such as Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office released new estimates Wednesday (Aug. 27) that lower Medicare spending projections by $62 billion over a decade, but $49 billion of that is due to a poor economy driving down...