Some House Democrats are joining Republicans to bash a proposed experiment that would lower how much money doctors get from Medicare.
Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said during a hearing Tuesday that he had “serious concerns” about the proposed experiment for Medicare Part B. He recently joined more than 20 Democratic lawmakers who wrote a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for information on the experiment.
“This proposed model is far from perfect, and I have serious concerns about the aspects of it,” he said during the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee.
Green joins Republicans who are already against the experiment. “This particular rule could cause grave consequences for our seniors,” said Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., chair of the health subcommittee.
A group of Democratic senators on the Senate Finance Committee also wrote to the administration last month outlining concerns.
“We have heard numerous concerns from patients, providers and other stakeholders about the model’s potential to have unintended consequences on Medicare beneficiaries’ access to care,” the letter said.
The experiment focuses on the reimbursements doctors get for Medicare Part B drugs, which covers drugs that are administered in a doctor’s office. An example is chemotherapy treatments received at a healthcare facility.
Currently, a doctor gets reimbursed for the cost of the drug plus 6 percent of the average sale price of the drug. The administration believes that this incentivizes doctors to prescribe costlier treatments to get more money.
The administration proposed changing the reimbursement to 2 percent of the average sale price and a fee of about $16 per drug.
Not all Democrats on the House panel were against the proposal.
“More care must be replaced with better care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the full committee’s ranking member. “The success of this delivery system reform is not possible if we do not give Medicare the tools to innovate the business.”
Pallone and other Democrats said the proposal hasn’t been finalized, and there is an opportunity to make changes to it.
The administration has also received support from the major unions such as the AFL-CIO and the influential senior lobbying group AARP.
