Medicare will begin paying for outpatient drugs on Jan. 1.

On Jan. 1, the federal government will no longer pay for outpatient drugs under Medicaid.

Roughly a third of older people have no coverage at all for outpatient drugs.

Medicare spends $8.2 billion a year for the outpatient drugs that it now covers.

This program was formed due to the costs that Medicaid programs were paying for outpatient drugs at their discounted prices.

Together, they serve more than 10 million people and spent a total of $3.4 billion on outpatient drugs last year.

Medicare now pays for a very limited number of outpatient drugs, including cancer drugs.

These discounts only apply to purchases of covered outpatient drugs.

Medicare now covers about 400 outpatient drugs, including certain cancer drugs and medications given to patients by injection or infusion in a doctor's office.

Mr. Clinton said that would "eliminate the physician markup for outpatient drugs."