Leavitt Won't Rule Out Medicaid Budget Cuts

HHS nominee Mike Leavitt said that Medicaid is "inefficient."

Pressed on Tuesday to say when the administration will nominate a permanent commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration -- described by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) as "an agency in crisis" -- Leavitt said he expects a decision soon.

He also avoided answering questions about proposals to allow Americans to import lower-priced prescription drugs from other countries, such as Canada.

"If they're not affordable, they cannot be effective," said Snowe, a leading advocate of importation legislation. "It's hard to understand the resistance, the intransigence on this issue."

In many respects, the hearings were an opportunity for senators to put on the record the gripes, fears and questions they have relating to the sprawling department, which includes the FDA, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Implementing the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will be "the main event at HHS in 2005," Leavitt told a few senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Tuesday.

Gregg asked if Leavitt will hold the new drug program to the administration's 10-year, $400 billion cost projection, or allow it to rise to the more recent estimates of $555 billion.

"I am aware of the controversy, aware the cost estimates changed," Leavitt replied. "It has been my practice as a manager to operate within my budget."

Said Gregg: "That would be great."