Medicare says competitive pricing will save $28B

[cbayer]

These are the kinds of changes to Medicare that are worth supporting.

Kudos again to Dr. Berwick. We need to make sure he is not removed as the CMS administrator at the end of this session. Lobby your congresscritters!

By Sam Baker - 08/19/11 04:00 PM ET
Medicare is dramatically expanding a program that it says will save billion of dollars and serve as a model for other cost-cutting efforts.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday announced the second round of a program that uses competitive bidding to set prices for certain medical products. Medicare now uses competitive bidding in nine cities and will expand to 91 areas, according to the Friday announcement.

In its first six months, the nine-city competitive bidding program has saved roughly $130 million, CMS officials said. The agency expects to save $28 billion over the next 10 years, roughly a third of which would be savings to patients.

“The president has clearly acknowledged the need for further savings to implement (in) the Medicare program, but I think we also need to take stock and take credit for what’s been achieved so far, and from a CMS perspective, DME competitive bidding is one that we’re proud of and one we believe is working,” CMS Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum said.

more at link:

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/177573-medicare-says-competitive-pricing-will-save-28b

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. That's one way of "raising taxes on the rich" if they own stocks in pharmcos. n/t

[demosincebirth]

2. Well, let us do it. nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. K&R!

[Vattel]

4. Encouraging news.

[flamingdem]

5. +1

[bbgrunt]

6. an interesting comment in the original piece:

From the American Association for Homecare: There's a reason why more than 30 patient advocacy groups, 244 economists and auction experts including several Nobel laureates, and 145 members of Congress in both parties, ranging from Michele Bachmann to Barny Frank oppose this program: it undermines quality of home-based care, it will increase costs and reduce competition. Because of this bidding program, beneficiaries will spend more time in expensive institutions, rather than in the far more cost-effective setting for care - their own homes. See http://blog.aahomecare.org/BY Michael Reinemer on 08/20/2011 at 08:43

[bhikkhu]

7. How can it reduce costs and foster competition, and increase costs and reduce competition?

where two claims contradict, I'm more inclined to trust the one that Bachman is against, but then its pretty hard to sort out whose predictions are more likely anyway...

[Mojorabbit]

8. I am interesting to get more info on it

If Barny Frank is against it it is worth looking into why he is against it

[cbayer]

9. AAHomecare is a lobbying group that has the most to lose here.

They primarily represent DME suppliers who hate the thought of this. Next to big pharma, DME is probably one of the biggest abusers of Medicare in this country.

Watch daytime TV sometime and see how they shill.

The last thing they want is competitive pricing.

Their link to the 145 members of Congress that oppose this goes here:

http://www.aahomecare.org/associations/3208/files/HR1041cosponsors.pdf

I think anything they say about this needs to be closely scrutinized.

[karynnj]

10. If you go to the blog, you see that AAHOMECARE is misrepresenting the letter

that the economists etc signed. Their concern is the design of the bidding process, not the basic idea.

From the link in the article you link to:

We are economists, computer scientists, and operation researchers with expertise in the theory and practice of auctions.1 We write to express our concerns with the Medicare Competitive Bidding Program for Durable Medical Equipment operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We believe that competitive bidding can be an effective method of controlling Medicare costs without sacrificing quality. However, the current auction program has flaws that need to be fixed before it can achieve the objectives of low cost and high quality.

The bolded sentence completely contradicts the way it is framed.

[Vattel]

11. Thanks. This clarifies things.