Health Care News – Read More
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday that GOP lawmakers are looking at changes to Medicare to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
Republican senators are taking a closer look at finding savings in Medicare to increase the total amount of deficit reduction in President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Tillis said a day after the Finance panel met with Trump at the White House.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week estimating that the House-passed 1,116-page bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Tillis said overhauling systems at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) could save a substantial amount of money without impacting Medicare benefits, which Trump has said should not be cut.
He said legislation sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) to reduce Medicare Advantage overpayments could be included in the bigger bill.
“Waste, fraud and abuse, you’ve got upcoding,” Tillis said. “Even in the plumbing of CMS — and by that I mean, procurement, matching up contracts, duplicate payments — there are a number of things that I think that we could find that never touch a beneficiary of Medicare or Medicaid that we’re going to go after.”
Tillis said there are “a number” of things that could be reformed under the CMS’s jurisdiction.
“In the plumbing of CMS, if you take look at contracting, contract execution, contract compliance, duplicate payments, there are a number of things that haven’t been touched by the prior administration,” he said.
He said Cassidy has “a very well-thought-out plan” to root out waste in Medicare Advantage.
“Bill is a physician, wants to make sure that we’re maintaining quality care, and I think he’s done a very, very good job of highlighting the opportunity for hundreds of billions of dollars in savings,” he added.
Tillis said “you could do those provisions” in the “big, beautiful bill,” which Senate Republicans are trying to get to Trump’s desk by July 4.
“It’s basically CMS modernization,” he said.
Cassidy’s bill could save an estimated $275 billion over the next decade, according to a Republican senator familiar with the Finance Committee’s deliberations over the proposal.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) told The Hill on Thursday that he is familiar with Cassidy’s proposal and that his committee is “evaluating” it for possible inclusion in the budget reconciliation package.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) attacked Republicans Thursday for looking at ways to cut Medicare spending.
“We learned yesterday the news that Republicans may want to even go after Medicare. Medicare is on the chopping block,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
“That’s right. At yesterday’s lunch, Republicans raised the possibility of Medicare cuts to pay for their billionaire tax cuts,” he said.
Cassidy’s proposal has bipartisan support, however.
Merkley, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, co-sponsored the legislation and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) offered it as an amendment at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing last month.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) highlighted the issue in March, during Mehmet Oz’s confirmation hearing to become administrator for CMS.
Warren noted at the hearing that the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general found that one insurance company received an additional $2.3 billion in Medicare Advantage reimbursements by upcoding diagnoses.
The subject came up at a Wednesday afternoon meeting over how the Senate will rewrite the 1,116-page House-passed budget reconciliation package, which Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters after the meeting that there “a legitimate debate” within the Senate Republican conference about whether bigger cuts can be made to federal Medicaid spending and whether federal Medicare spending needs to be reviewed as well.
“There’s a legitimate debate about, ‘Can we do more with Medicaid? Are we doing too much with Medicaid? How much waste, fraud and abuse is there in Medicare? Why don’t we go after that?’ I think we should,” Cramer said after meeting with GOP colleagues.
Updated at 4:02 p.m. EDT
