So quit beatin' up the insurance companies, Clinton.
She's so full of bovine excrement:
WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she and a House Democrat plan to introduce a bill to counter what she called a secret, "corrupt" Republican move to transfer Medicare funds to insurance companies.
The New York Democrat and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan denounced a reported attempt by House and Senate Republicans to save the insurance industry more than $22 billion over 10 years.
Clinton called the deal "an example of the culture of corruption in passing legislation in the dead of night."
The deal, Clinton and Dingell said, was reached in a closed-door House-Senate conference on a budget bill last month. A Senate bill would have lowered reimbursements, which are really overpayments by Medicare private health maintenance organizations, by $26 billion.
The overpayments result from HMOs billing Medicare the highest possible price allowed for a medical service, a process known as upcoding.
Clinton explained that HMOs have been allowed to bill Medicare for treating kidney failure, for example, when a patient actually has less expensive diabetes.
Clinton and Dingell said that in the conference, which excluded the Democrats, Republican conferees yielded to pressure from the insurance industry. The Congressional Budget Office said the conference reduced projected payouts by only $4 billion.
"This Republican effort to protect a ($22 billion) windfall for insurance companies came as Republicans in Congress drastically cut Medicaid benefits and took away medically necessary care for children and seniors to offset their budget," Clinton said in a conference call with Dingell.
"I just came back from a trip to pharmacies in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse," Clinton said, "and I can tell you that this money ought to go to reimburse pharmacies and reimburse the states" for problems in dealing with the new Medicare prescription program.
The conference bill will come up for final passage in the House next Wednesday. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who took part in the closed-door conference, said he also opposed "giveaways" to the insurance industry, but he called the budget office's estimates "ridiculous."
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060125/1058567.asp