Committee Leaders Ask GAO to Review CMS Part D Premium Stabilization Program
The lawmakers The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has called for a review of the Medicare Part D premium stabilization demonstration recently announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), citing questionable legality and the danger it poses to health care affordability for seniors. The effort is part of a letter to the GAO from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Senate Finance Committee Ranking Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO).
The demonstration appears to be intended to reduce, through new taxpayer-funded policy adjustments, premiums for seniors that would rise significantly due to counterintuitive and haphazardly written drug pricing provisions in the Anti-Inflation Act. However, the agencies have not conducted any budget analysis, and the proposal appears to lack a clear legal basis or credible research objectives. Rogers, Crapo, and Smith request that GAO consider the demonstration’s lawfulness under Section 402 of the Social Security Amendments of 1967, the budget analysis CMS conducted in developing the demonstration, and an estimate of the demonstration’s budgetary impact.
From the letter:
“We are writing to request the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expedite its review of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 29, 2024. In response to problematic design features of the Inflation Control Act (IRA) and a rushed legislative process, the proposed demonstration employs arbitrary policy measures to achieve short-term goals. The initiative lacks a budget analysis, a clear legal basis, or credible research objectives. The integrity of the Medicare program and the taxpayer dollars that fund its benefits demand more than partisan aspirations to justify extra-legal, last-minute policy changes.”
[. . .]
“[T]”The policies pursued through the recently announced demonstrations simply shift costs from plan sponsors and participants to taxpayers and obscure the impact of the law without addressing the underlying causes. Moreover, consideration of programmatic changes of this nature should be within the purview of the Legislature. However, this agency’s actions seek to circumvent Congress by abandoning statutory mandates under the guise of a ‘demonstration project,’ without any meaningful research objectives, budgetary evaluation, or empirical rigor.”
click here Read the full letter.
