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New Medicaid Advisory Commission Charged With Saving
$10 Billion
HHS also wants them to develop ideas of improving
services
May 20, 2005 A Medicaid advisory commission was
announced today with the awesome assignments of saving $10 billion in
the next five years, while at the same time finding enhancements to
better serve beneficiaries.
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In making the announcement, HHS Secretary Mike
Leavitt said the advisory commission will help identify the reforms
necessary to stabilize and strengthen Medicaid so it can continue to
serve our most vulnerable citizens.
For generations, Medicaid has served the health
care needs of the truly needy in America, but today the program is no
longer meeting its potential, Secretary Leavitt said.
It is rigidly inflexible and inefficient, and
worst of all, it is not financially sustainable. I look forward to
working with this commission in an open and bipartisan manner to reform
and modernize Medicaid. The time to reform Medicaid is now, and this
commission will help the Administration, Congress and the states create
a plan to ensure Medicaid can meet its goal of providing quality health
care in a financially sustainable way, Leavitt added.
The Medicaid commission must submit two reports to
Secretary Leavitt. The first, due Sept. 1, will outline recommendations
for Medicaid to achieve $10 billion in savings during the next five
years as well as ways to begin meaningful long-term enhancements that
can better serve beneficiaries. The commission, for its first report,
also will consider potential performance goals for Medicaid.
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The second report, due Dec. 31, 2006, will provide
recommendations to help ensure the long-term sustainability of Medicaid.
The proposals will address key issues such as:
> How to expand coverage to more Americans
while still being fiscally responsible;
> Ways to provide long-term care to those who need it;
> A review of eligibility, benefits design, and delivery; and
> Improved quality of care, choice and beneficiary satisfaction.
The second report will also consider how to address
the major issues affecting Medicaid under three different scenarios: an
assumption that federal and state spending continues at current paces,
an assumption that Congress chooses to lower the rate of growth in the
program, and an assumption that Congress may increase spending for
coverage. The report will assume that the basic federal-state match for
Medicaid will continue.
The Secretary will appoint up to 15 voting members
to the commission, including at least three representatives of public
policy organizations involved in health care policy for families,
individuals with disabilities, individuals with limited incomes, and the
elderly. The commission may also have, among others, former or current
governors, former or current state Medicaid directors, and other
individuals with expertise in health, finance or administration. In
addition to the voting members, the commission will have up to 23
non-voting members including advisors with specific health care
expertise or interest in Medicaid, and as many as eight policy experts
designated by various Congressional leaders.
A full copy of the commissions charter is
available at
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/faca/mc/default.asp.
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