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As many as 24,000 North Carolina Medicare recipients may be affected by the suspension of a New York-based drug plan.

Federal Medicare regulators have ordered Fox Insurance Company of New York to suspended new enrollments and marketing for its Medicare Part D drug plan because the company was not providing drugs to customers quickly, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The company, without permission from Medicare, was suggesting patients use cheaper drugs than those prescribed by doctors. Given the drugs for treating cancer, diabetes and HIV/AIDS, delays in medications could have had serious implications.

More than 24,000 Medicare recipients in North Carolina were enrolled with the company, said Kristin Milam, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Insurance. Mecklenburg County had more than 1,400 enrollees and Wake County had about 1,000.

Many of those enrolled were also enrolled in Medicaid and should be able to change drug providers on a monthly basis, she said. Others may have to follow special procedures. Milam said anyone with questions is encouraged to contact the state's free Seniors' Health Insurance Information Program, which provides unbiased, expert advice and information. 

"If you've got a question about it and you think you're affected by this, go ahead and call," Milam said. "You will get a live person when you call that 1-800 number."

Individual, in person appointments are also available in every county. For more information visit www.ncshiip.com or call 1-800-443-9354.

The federal goverment will cut the state's Medicare prescription drug bill by $152 million, according to Gov. Bev Perdue. 

The $152 million is the state's share of the $4.3 billion in temporary Medicare cost cuts announced this week. 

Under a federal law passed in 2003, the states help pay Medicare prescription drug costs for people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. The states' share of those costs are called "clawback payments."

As she announced the reductions this week, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the money the states save can be used to help pay for Medicaid. 

Medicaid is the fastest-growing part of the state budget, according to a recent think-tank study.

According to the federal government's calculations, the state will pay $400.6 million in clawback payments instead of $552.9 million. 

The reductions will apply to the period from Oct. 1, 2008 to the end of this year. The money to cover the cost is coming from the federal stimulus package. 

The state's Medicaid budget was on track to be $250 million in the red by the end of the year.  

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan said from the Senate floor Tuesday that software could prevent billions in Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

It was part of a package of amendments Senate freshman advanced that were meant to lower health care costs by eliminating fraud, abuse and waste.

In 2003, a similar bill that would have purchased the same type of software for the state died in a powerful state Senate committee co-chaired by Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat.

Hagan said she doesn't specifically remember the bill. A spokesman said the software Hagan is advocating now is more advanced than the products available in 2003.

Republican Sen. Richard Burr, long a critic of Democratic efforts to craft a health care overhaul, says he can not support the new Senate proposal.

Burr said the bill "is yet another attempt by Washington Democrats to take over our nation's health care system," Rob Christensen reports. He said it would cut Medicare benefits for seniors, increase taxes on small businesses, increase federal spending, and put "government bureaucrats between patients and their doctors."

He said the real cost of the bill over 10 years would be $2.5 trillion.

"This is not the kind of health reform I can support," Burr said said in statement. "It is certainly not the kind of health reform that the American people want. I oppose the bill, and I will work to see it does not become law. I agree we need health care reform, but this bill is not the answer."

UPDATE: Dollar amount corrected.

N.C. Sen. Bill Purcell rose to ask President Barack Obama a question about prescription drugs.

Purcell is a primary care physician and said his patients sometimes struggle to pay for the medicine they need to get better.

"What can we do about the high cost of medicine in America?" he asked.

Obama said that drugs cost 77 percent more in America than in any other country. Research and development as well as marketing costs play into that disparity, Obama said.

"Basically the pharmaceutical industry can get away with it," he said.

Obama said he would push for allowing Medicare to negotiate for the price of prescription drugs. He also said he would want to see debate about how long drug patents should last. Right now, pharmaceutical companies can hold a patent for 12 years. He would consider lowering that to seven years.

"There's no reason why we should not be able to at least pay in the ball park of what other countries are paying for the exact same drug," Obama said.

Myril Linder, 73, of Cary, doesn't buy the argument that a public health care plan won't work.

She's on a public plan: Medicare.

Linder and her husband Willis, 83, are attending President Barack Obama's town hall event today. She said she disagrees with the people who say a public health care plan will lead to a rationing of health care.

"What's the difference? That's the way it is now. That's what President Obama is trying to change," Linder said. "If we do nothing, health care will just get so expensive no one can afford it."

Where is North Carolina's federal stimulus money going?

A bimonthly report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office has a breakdown of where some of the stimulus money has gone so far:

* MEDICARE/MEDICAID: As of April 1, the state had drawn down $414.6 million extra for Medicare and Medicaid programs to offset the budget deficit.

* ROADS AND BRIDGES: As of April 16, the N.C. Department of Transportation had obligated about $165 million for 53 projects in economically distressed areas.

* EDUCATION: As of April 2, the state has been allocated about $952 million to fund education, but it has not yet determined how to spend it.

In addition, North Carolina expects to receive $80 million for worker training, $34.5 million for crime control grants and other money for a low-income housing tax credit program.

Overall, the state is expected to receive $6.1 billion.

U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge will focus on trade matters and oversight issues in his first term on the influential Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives.

Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, is the first North Carolinian named to the committee since 1953. The committee is the source of all tax bills and has jurisdiction over Medicare and Social Security, Barb Barrett reports.

Etheridge was named today to the subcommittees on Trade and Oversight.

The oversight panel will give Etheridge a position to help shape the economic recovery plan being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama. Etheridge this week wrote Obama asking him to including Etheridge's school construction proposal in the plan.

On the trade subcommittee, Etheridge said he wants to not only enforce current agreements but make sure new agreements support North Carolina's workers and products.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is voting with the Democrats more lately.

The Salisbury Republican has broken with her party more this year than she did in 2007, according to an analysis of her voting record by The Hill, a Washington-based political paper.

Leaving out missed votes and bills that both parties favored, Dole voted against a majority of her party 25.5 percent of the time this year, versus 6.6 percent in 2007, 6.4 percent in the 2005-06 session and 4.3 percent in the 2003-04 session.

Dole was one of seven Republicans who voted for a climate-change bill, among other things:

Some of Dole’s most significant breaks with the GOP include backing a Democratic economic stimulus measure, supporting Medicare legislation that Bush vetoed, endorsing an amendment to expand children's healthcare coverage to pregnant women and voting for an expansive amendment to lengthen dwell-time for troops before they return to Iraq.

In an interview with the paper, Dole said that she is voting for what's "best for the people of my state," saying she was not moving to the middle because of the upcoming election.

Democratic opponent Kay Hagan's campaign e-mailed a link to the story to reporters.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole was fairly bipartisan in the 2003-04 session.

With the candidates for Senate touting their records of bipartisanship, Dome has been taking a closer look at the number of Democrats who signed on to legislation Dole sponsored.

In the 2003-04 session, the Salisbury Republican was the primary sponsor of 16 bills. Of them, eight had no cosponsors and eight had Democratic cosponsors.

A bill to award the Congressional Medal of Honor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair had 48 Republican cosponsors and 30 Democrats, including Sens. Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman and Chuck Schumer.

Overall, that boosted her Democratic cosponsors to 48, compared to 66 Republican cosponsors, or about a three-to-two ratio.

Her most frequent Democratic cosponsor was fellow North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who signed on to the Blair honors, a bill to recognize the Lumbee tribe, an amendment on a Medicare bill and another amendment.

Previously: Dole's cosponsors in 2005-06 and 2007-08.