WASHINGTON — Medicare recipients filled fewer prescriptions for pricey brand-name drugs – but spent more on such meds anyway, says a government report released Monday. It blames rising manufacturer prices for squeezing older people and taxpayers. The Health and Human Services inspector general’s office says it found a 17 percent drop in the overall number of prescriptions for brand-name medications under Medicare’s “Part D” drug program over a recent five-year period. But beneficiaries’ costs for branded drugs went in the opposite direction.