Plaintiff facilities in the case are nonprofits Homestead Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Pan American Hospital Corp., as well as for-profits Hialeah Hospital, North Shore Hospital, Palmetto General Hospital, and Parkway Regional Medical Center. With overall Medicare reform, and the possibility of adding a prescription drug benefit to the program as the carrots, House and Senate committees have pledged to remake the Health Care Financing Administration, modernizing it to better reflect the realities of the 21st century health care marketplace. In this endeavor, they have the support of the Bush White House. Ideas for reforming HCFA abound. They range from more sweeping proposals, such as adopting a Medicare board, separate from the agency, to administer Medicare's managed care and drug benefits, to transferring the agency's responsibility for Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 to other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Lawmakers say their chief aim is to improve beneficiary services and outreach.
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