Medicare

Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is expected to unveil legislation to improve nursing home oversight, possibly before the end of the year, according to a source working on the legislation.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission discussed possible 2021 pay recommendations on Thursday and Friday (Dec. 5 and 6) for a number of industries, including reducing the hospice pay cap and tying some hospital pay to the Hospital Value Incentive Program, though the commissioners plan to have a further discussion in January on what to pay hospitals.

Senate Finance Committee leaders will release an updated drug pricing bill on Friday (Dec. 5) less than 24 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced the lower chamber will vote on her more-aggressive drug pricing bill next week.

Senate Finance Committee leaders will release an updated drug pricing bill on Friday (Dec. 5) less than 24 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced the lower chamber will vote on her more-aggressive drug pricing bill next week.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that House Democrats’ drug pricing bill would save half a trillion dollars in a decade, according to House Democratic leaders, and Democrats plan to use those savings to pay for additional drug research at the National Institutes of Health, additional Medicare benefits and a hodgepodge of Medicare and Medicaid policies that would lower costs for beneficiaries of those programs.

Two Democratic senators are calling on CMS, the Federal Trade Commission and five health care companies to ensure artificial intelligence tools used in health care are not biased, amid recent interest by CMS in using artificial intelligence in Medicare.

In the lead up to the last week of Medicare open enrollment, CMS said it is already seeing the positive impact of the new Medicare Plan Finder and blames the media for talking about glitches or malfunctions, but the Center for Medicare Advocacy says the agency is not acknowledging that problems with the new system could hurt beneficiaries.

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg proposed giving the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation authority to pilot new payment models that would tackle social determinants of health and requiring Medicare and Medicaid develop and meet health equity standards as well as collect and protect demographic health data to reduce inequity in health care.

Researchers in a study released Thursday (Nov. 21) suggested reforming Medicare by building a premium-support type system based solely on Medicare Advantage as an alternative to Democrats’ Medicare for All built off the current system, but the researchers said a premium support system should be set up without a public option and MA risk adjustment would need to be retooled first.