On the recordJune 12, 2018
I thank the chairman for the time, and I will be short. This bill is important. It is bipartisan, and it ensures that patients will have access to the full continuum of care. It is important to make sure that Congress and CMS understand how those dollars for Medicaid are being used. Whether that is under a waiver, whether it is under managed care, under fee for service, the goal of this legislation is to identify those gaps in our knowledge and to leverage MACPAC's research capabilities to address those gaps for the betterment of patients not only in Michigan but, obviously, around the country. So this simply requires that Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission submit to Congress a report on the information about services furnished to Medicaid enrollees who are patients in an institute of mental disease, IMD, including standards that they must follow, including quality standards and recommendations how they can include the data collection for IMDs. This is going to be better for everybody, which is one of the reasons why it should have no opposition. I appreciate the leadership of Mike Burgess, the chair of the Health Subcommittee, and Chairman Walden, and our friends on the other side of the aisle who, again, worked with us to make sure that this could be a reality this afternoon. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill.
