Reporters’ Roundup: DoD budget cuts, Medicare/Medicaid tracking

Reporters\' Roundup with Federal News Radio\'s Jason Miller, Francis Rose and Jared Serbu.

  • The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expanding the use of technology to better track down payments that shouldn’t have been made. After completing a pilot in December, CMS, under instruction by the Office of Management and Budget, will apply data mining software more broadly to find and recover improper payments. Danny Werfel, OMB controller, told Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller about how CMS will expand the pilot and other priorities around improper payments for CFOs in 2011.
    Listen for part 2 of their interview tomorrow morning on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Amy Morris starting at 6 a.m. Werfel will discuss the status of two other financial management pilots.
  • How can the Pentagon balance the budget and keep equipping war fighters at the same time? In Depth host Francis Rose got insights from former Navy Undersecretary Seth Cropsey of the Hudson Institute. Cropsey analyzed Defense Secretary Gates’s budget plan and discussed balancing budget considerations with protecting and equipping war fighters.
  • Just like in years past, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is likely to face an uphill fight in his effort to increase TRICARE premiums. Groups that represent military retirees are gearing up for another fight over TRICARE premiums. They successfully beat back DoD’s proposed increases in the last several defense appropriations bills. But Secretary Gates said last week he wants to impose “modest” increases on working-age retirees. He said at the time that retirees who have access to health care through their employers are leaning on TRICARE simply because it’s so cheap with annual premiums of less than $500.
    Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu will have more on the story tomorrow on the Federal Drive with Amy Morris and Tom Temin.

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