Medicare

MIAMI -- A Florida doctor convicted of pocketing more than $1 million for writing phony prescriptions for unnecessary HIV treatments was sentenced Monday to almost 20 years in prison, for his key role in a massive Medicare fraud conspiracy. The scam bilked millions of dollars from the federal health care program.

MIAMI -- A few years ago, Ernesto Angel Montaner was overheard bragging at a wedding reception that the FBI would never be able to touch him since he'd been the only defendant acquitted in a vast health care fraud case in the 1990s.

He doesn't have much to boast about anymore. He's stuck behind bars at a federal detention center in downtown Miami awaiting trial on Medicare fraud charges.

Montaner, a member of a prominent Cuban exile family, was extradited in late February from Costa Rica, where he had fled in early 2009. That was one year before prosecutors charged him, his son and a business partner with conspiring to bilk the taxpayer-funded Medicare program by submitting millions of dollars in false claims at their rehabilitation clinics.

WASHINGTON -- Plans to curb Medicare spending are proliferating -- spurred by concerns about the federal budget deficit -- and setting the stage for potentially bruising battles between seniors' advocates and budget cutters.

The proposals, put forth by members of bipartisan deficit-reduction panels as well as Republican lawmakers, aim to help reduce the $1.3 trillion annual deficit as well as the mounting national debt. The plans would require beneficiaries to pay a larger share of Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and people with disabilities. One idea would transform the 45-year-old program by giving seniors a set amount of money to buy their own Medicare coverage.

SOUTH OGDEN -- Recreation fees can be cut in half for children whose parents are on Medicare or Medicaid under a resolution passed by the city council.