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1994.05.06 : Creation of a Medicare-Medicaid Coverage Data Bank

Contact: HCFA
Friday, May 6, 1994                           Anne Verona
					      202-690-6145


     The Health Care Financing Administration is asking Congress to
delay requirements that employers maintain and report data on health
care coverage of workers and dependents.

     The request, to be announced in a Federal Register notice, asks
Congress to delay for 18 months the reporting requirements for
creation of a Medicare-Medicaid Coverage Data Bank.    

     "This proposed schedule will allow us to work with Congress and
the business community to ensure that the Data Bank is consistent
with health care reform," said Bruce C. Vladeck, administrator of
the federal Health Care Financing Administration.

     The data bank will help HCFA identify Medicare and Medicaid
beneficiaries also covered by employer health plans.  Under federal
law, Medicare and Medicaid are secondary payers of health coverage
when private health coverage is available.

     Vladeck said, "We want to ensure that any health insurance
reporting requirements placed on employers are implemented with
efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

     "The delay will enable us to proceed in a manner consistent 
with health care reform -- achieving the savings intended by the law
with sound procedures developed with care and managed efficiently,"
he said.


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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Health Care Financing Administration, which
administers the Medicare and Medicaid programs, helps pay the
medical bills of 70 million Americans. HCFA's fiscal year 1994
budget amounts to nearly $250 billion.