The studies were issued as President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats take aim at the plans and consider cutting the payments they receive.

Medicare officials’ 2006 statements that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims were misleading, a draft report says.

Medicare’s top officials in 2006 said that they reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency, but a draft report says those claims of success were misleading.

The health insurer Humana faced less drops in premiums from its stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans than it had expected.

No matter who sits in the Oval Office next year, there won’t be many degrees of freedom in the federal budget. The main problem: Medicare.

Bush vetoed a bill protecting doctors from a Medicare pay cut, but both houses of Congress overrode the veto with large bipartisan majorities and made the bill a law.

President Bush cast a futile veto, rejecting a bill that would protect doctors from cuts in Medicare payments.

President Bush cast what appears likely to be a futile veto, rejecting a bill that would protect doctors from cuts in their Medicare payments.

President Bush cast what appears likely to be a futile veto, rejecting a bill that would protect doctors from cuts in their Medicare payments.

President Bush cast what appears likely to be a futile veto, rejecting a bill that would protect doctors from cuts in their Medicare payments.