In Brief

An analysis by the congressional Joint Commission on Taxation found that President Bush’s health care reform plan would increase taxes by $333.6 billion from 2009 to 2017, with 58 million Americans’ taxes going up by an average of $2,295 per year. While the White House has said the plan, which would make health benefits over a certain threshold taxable, would level the playing field between employer-provided health insurance and that bought by those in the individual health insurance market, critics say it would leave many older and sicker Americans unable to find coverage.

CMS has approved Cigna Government Services’ plan to assume full operation of DME MAC Jurisdiction C on June 1, taking over claims processing for the 15-state region, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from Palmetto GBA. Cigna has developed a special Web site for updates on its progress online at www.cignagovernmentservices.com/transition.

CMS has extended the acceptance period for its old Form CMS-1500 (12-90) version beyond the original April 1 deadline because incorrectly formatted versions of the revised form have been sold. Medicare contractors will accept the older version of the form until further notice. During the interim, contractors will be directed to return, not manually key, any CMS-1500 (08-05) forms received that are not printed to specification.