Another emerging issue...new devices that are also helping to advance health care, but will we have access to them? BD
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical device companies are on defense to prove their pricey new technologies are worth the price, in the face of increasing U.S. health care costs and rising numbers of individuals without health insurance. Executives accused the U.S. Medicare program of not keeping pace with medical device innovations by skimping on industry reimbursements at a meeting of Advamed, the medical device industry's trade group on Tuesday. The use -- and sometimes overuse -- of medical technologies ranging from tiny wire-mesh stents to prop open heart arteries to advanced body imaging -- are often blamed for driving up health care costs in recent years.
Imaging services such as expensive MRI and CAT scans are a frequent target of critics who say the tests are overprescribed and add millions in costs to the health care system.
The industry recently staved off $400 million in cuts in the Medicare program to imaging services in a bill to extend children's health insurance program. President George W. Bush has said he will veto the bill and it will likely go back to the Congress for further cuts.
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