On the recordJune 17, 2015
I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for bringing up this bill and also my colleague, Mr. Buchanan of Florida. There was some comment that CMS was making some mistakes that have not been transparent. It has been my understanding that they have had problems wrestling with this so-called star system themselves and have not enforced the law, that we are now saying that they will not enforce the law until after they study the complexities and report back to the Congress in an additional 3 years. In short, they have this star system and, as most people should recognize, that when you are dealing with old, fragile, sick, poor people, there are more complexities to performance than in ordinary programs that compete with Medicare Advantage. We have this population, and they have penalized some of the providers because they have had just more problems to deal with than just medical problems, and they haven't been able to resolve them. They haven't enforced this provision. Under this bill, which Mr. Buchanan and the other sponsors have agreed, it tells the CMS to go back and to find out a way that you can treat these recipients of health care in a fairer way. It also tells CMS to take into consideration that the problems that Medicare Advantage has still to come are far more severe and far more complex than in other areas.…
