Obamacare created the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), an agency tasked with conducting demonstrations over new health care delivery and payment models in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program with the intent of reducing healthcare costs. While the goals of this agency are laudable, CMMI is using its broad authority to marginalize the constitutional role of Congress in order to push bad healthcare policy.
CMMI tests are supposed to increase the efficiency of healthcare programs by either improving quality without increasing spending or reducing spending without decreasing quality. However, the agency has pushed tests with little evidence they will result in savings, while strong-arming providers into participating.
The last eight years have seen the executive branch repeatedly push unilaterally actions that ignore the will of Congress and the American people. The actions of CMMI to unilaterally propose changes in law represents a new avenue for unelected bureaucrats to push their liberal agenda even in the face of opposition from doctors, patients, and Congress.
Lawmakers must assert their constitutional authority over this wayward agency. The fact is, it is the job of Congress to make these changes to law.
CMMI Not Subject to Congressional Oversight: Federal agencies are typically funded through the annual appropriations process, which gives Congress control over funds each year and the opportunity to conduct oversight over the actions of an agency.
CMMI is not subject to this process – the agency has been obligated $10 billion this decade and $10 billion every decade in perpetuity. As a result, the agency has free rein to do what it wants with these funds and Congress is limited as to the oversight it can conduct over the agency.
To date, CMMI has spent more than $6 billion with no savings to show for it. In the real world, the agency’s poor performance would see its funds reduced. Instead, CMMI continues to receive funds automatically.
CBO Methodology Hampers CMMI Oversight: The Congressional Budget Office is the scorekeeper for Congress on all fiscal issues. It provides cost estimates on all legislation and is therefore an integral part of the budget making process. In measuring the fiscal cost/benefit of CMMI demonstrations, CBO is adjusting the trillion dollar federal baseline even though it is unclear whether there will be any savings at all.
The agency assumes that tests are recouping billions in savings as if they are successful even though these tests are in their early stages, and little, if any evidence has been compiled. Conversely, CBO is scoring any attempt to block or correct CMMI demos as costing the government money. This binds the hands of lawmakers by forcing them to consider offsetting spending cuts whenever they wish to exert proper oversight over CMMI.
Not only does this decision distort the federal baseline with misleading estimates, it makes it much harder for Congress to do its job by giving CMMI tests supremacy over the work done by lawmakers.
CMMI is Promoting Bad Healthcare Policy: Because of its broad authority over mandatory spending, CMMI has been able to propose sweeping policy changes with little evidence of future savings. The latest CMMI test proposes a new, lower payment model for physician-administered prescription drugs under Part B of Medicare.
Because CMMI has decided it can mandate participation in its tests, the rule rewrites existing payment models for as much as 75 percent of the country forcing thousands of doctors and patients across the country to participate. Because the rule drastically reduces reimbursement rates to doctors, it is likely that these tests will hurt access to care for seniors across the country.
This massive test should be subject to careful scrutiny, especially as there are concerns that the demonstration will not save the money that CMMI claims. However, Congress is hamstrung in its ability to conduct meaningful oversight because of CBO methodology.