Obama budget cuts health spending by $360 billion

President Obama's budget proposal will cut federal healthcare spending by $360 billion - including $300 billion from Medicare - over the next 10 years, according to a summary of the spending blueprint that will be fully unveiled Monday.

The savings target for Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs is nearly identical to the $320 billion in healthcare savings included in the president's $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan last September. Senior administration officials confirmed in a media call that the proposals would be not identical but very similar, with most of the savings coming from provider cuts and changes to drug reimbursements. September's deficit-cutting proposal would have required wealthy seniors to pay more for their Medicare benefits, cut payments to doctors and hospitals and shifted Medicaid costs to the states.

The new budget keeps funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health level at $30.7 billion for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The budget will propose "new grant management policies to increase the number of new research grants by 7 percent," according to the budget summary.