WASHINGTON NEWS

Medicare Hearings End in Senate.—  The Senate Finance Committee concluded three weeks of hearings on the House-passed medicare bill and started executive session consideration of the $6 billion measure that provides a hospital benefit program for the elderly under social security and a supplemental medical insurance plan subsidized by the federal government.One of the more controversial features of the legislation was the exemption of the services of hospital specialists—anesthesiologists, radiologists, pathologists, and physiatrists—from the basic hospital benefit program. Their services would be provided under the voluntary supplementary plan according to the House bill.The American Medical Association, the specialists' groups, and other organizations supported the continued exemption of the specialists from the basic program. Urging that the House bill be changed to include the specialists' services were the administration, American Hospital Association, and AFL-CIO.Victor B. Buhler, MD, president of the College of American Pathologists, told the committee that