Services include help selecting prescription plans, understanding Medicare changes, and analyzing insurance policies.

An independent federal commission said last year that the Medicare changes had not reduced patients' access to care.

But their worries about the Medicare changes do not end there.

If the Medicare changes aren't disturbing enough, the new budget takes on Medicaid which covers services other programs don't cover, like nursing home care.

Some senators had legitimate reasons to oppose the Medicare changes.

He touched on another domestic issue that is making Congressional Republicans anxious - Medicare changes.

Senators will almost certainly vote directly on the Medicare changes.

Experts trace their growth to Medicare changes in 1983, when hospitals started being reimbursed based on each patient's diagnosis, rather actual treatment costs.

Topping that list, this adviser and others said, are health-related measures like a patients' bill of rights and certain Medicare changes.

Meanwhile, commercial programs are considering what the Medicare change might mean for them.