The Medicare commission is studying several options.

Drug companies and members of the Medicare commission want to maintain these sources of drug coverage.

He offered his advice to the Medicare commission today without being specific about the details, which he said were for politicians to decide.

Rank partisanship is not the only reason to doubt that the Medicare commission will resolve the problem of how to pay for the program after the baby boomers retire.

We must be willing to work in a bipartisan way and look at new ideas, including the upcoming report of the bipartisan Medicare commission.

Mr. Hiatt had criticized Congress for not taking what he considers the necessary steps to control health-care costs namely, taxing high-cost insurance plans and establishing an independent Medicare commission.

"The politics are lethal," said Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, who led a bipartisan Medicare commission that ended in a deadlock in early 1999.

The 17-member Medicare commission expired on Tuesday, one vote short of the 11 needed to endorse any formal recommendations to Congress or the President.

But Congress usually responds only to pressing problems, and Medicare's financial troubles seem less urgent today than in 1997, when Congress created the Medicare commission.

It pays for itself, so it's not in conflict with the long-term efforts of the Medicare commission.