The Congressional Budget Office said surveys of employers showed that many health maintenance organizations had cut back on covered services.

Even the covered services in managed care are disappointing many patients.

Table or Schedule of Allowance programs determine a list of covered services with an assigned dollar amount.

The Government pays 80 percent of what it calls the "reasonable charge" for a covered service, while the patient is responsible for the remainder.

The focus of most questions in Tigard last week was the list of covered services.

The Medicare payment system is complicated, inefficient and generally subject to immense political pressures on setting prices and policy for covered services.

Many women who cannot obtain covered services through their own plan can get them through their husbands'.

Doing so allows a government to save money now but still receive the covered services and thus avoid the problems entailed in layoffs or furloughs.

It also expands covered services to include physician costs for labor and delivery along with prenatal care.

Largely because of opposition from anti-abortion lawmakers, the program excluded abortions from the covered services.