The easy way for Medicare to save money. Put more effort getting generics onto the market faster:
The Bush administration has proposed no increase in the office’s budget of $28 million for 2007, even though the number of generic drug applications more than doubled in the past five years, to 777 last year from 320 in 2001.
The agency now has a backlog of 850 applications for generic drugs, more than twice that of 2002.
