I have the utmost respect for Patrick Conway, who heads the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS, the federal agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid. Conway, like thousands of others in and out of government, is looking for ways to improve the health care of our nation.
However, action taken in the closing days of an administration, especially if it supersedes congressional authority and oversight, needs to be carefully examined. Last week, the House Budget Committee held a hearing taking a closer look at this with regard to CMMI and how the Congressional Budget Office evaluates costs associated with it, putting the CBO squarely in the middle of the struggle between the branches.
As recent proposals by CMMI to alter Medicare payments highlight, there are serious problems with the expansive reading of CMMI’s statutory authority. And the result is a significant shift of power from Congress to the executive branch.
The Affordable Care Act, which created CMMI, authorized CMMI to conduct demonstration projects for any part of Medicare and some of Medicaid, with the goal of saving money and improving quality. To conduct these experiments, the ACA allows the Secretary of HHS to waive virtually any part of Medicare and exempt a limited but important number of Medicaid provisions (e.g. the requirement that state Medicaid programs pay actuarially sound rates for managed care).
If HHS determines that a demonstration produces savings (or does not increase costs) and preserves or increases quality, it can expand the policy through rulemaking to the entire Medicare or Medicaid population. The process does not require any congressional approval or assessment, or review of the claims of savings and quality by the CBO or the Government Accountability Office.
With this process, HHS/CMMI can alter benefits and potentially reduce access for beneficiaries, and expose the federal budget to financial risks based on estimates generated solely by the executive branch. Given the uncertainty in savings and the somewhat nebulous definitions of quality in some of these demonstrations, it is not difficult to imagine that the use of this process could vary dramatically with changes of administration.
In a recent example, CMMI has proposed to change the Medicare payment system for drugs that treat diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, which are administered in a doctor’s office. The new payments would go into effect on a mandatory basis in roughly half the country, but Medicare payments would be left unchanged in the other half. Payments, benefits, and potentially access to care, would depend on where the Medicare beneficiary lived. This approach is a nationwide policy experiment introduced unilaterally by the executive.
There are many reasons this new policy, and others like it, should receive congressional review before implementation. Untested payment changes for Medicare benefits, especially when mandatory and applied to tens of millions of recipients, should receive much more consideration than a brief public comment period before the initiation of the new policy. Whatever the good intentions, a major and mandatory change in payment is not something (most of) Congress contemplated. In fact, many members of Congress have publicly expressed concern to HHS regarding this proposal.
To compound the problem, congressional budgetary rules generally impose a “pay-as-you-go” requirement. Since HHS claims the new policy will save money, any legislation to delay or modify CMMI’s proposals would likely be scored by CBO as lost future savings. Therefore, legislation to limit the experiment would have to be offset by cutting spending or raising revenues by an equal amount. Congress would be forced to “pay for” the delay or repeal of untested policy created by the executive branch.
As a former director of the CBO, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to estimate the impacts of regulatory changes. The assessment of new regulations (and scoring of legislation affecting them) is especially difficult — the effects are necessarily prospective and somewhat speculative. As CBO said last year:
(CBO) … expects that only a few (CMMI) models … will reduce program spending. However, CBO cannot predict which models will succeed, and CMMI has not operated long enough to determine its overall track record.
Given this shift in balance of power between the two branches, and the difficulty in measuring the true cost savings from any particular CMMI experiment, Congress should not set precedent by attempting to legislatively offset the cost of delay or repeal of any CMMI proposal, particularly if it has not gone into effect and there is no track record.
Having worked both in the Congress and the White House, I understand the frustrations and tensions between the congressional and executive branches. And at the end of an administration, which I also experienced, there is always unfinished business. As a member of the team that reviewed end-of-term proposals, I can confidently say this CMMI proposal is not one we would have approved. With limited ability for oversight under this framework, Congress should exercise its authority and halt this experiment until it can properly consider the effects of the proposed policy.
Dan Crippen is a former director of the CBO, has served in the Senate and White House and most recently was the executive director of the National Governors Association.
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