Political Quotes

“4 years ago I began to express my concerns about the competitive bidding program that CMS proposed for durable medical equipment. The goal of the program was laudable--to save money and to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the Medicare program--but the implementation of the program has been fraught with problems. This issue is of particular importance to me because the Pittsburgh region, which I represent, was one of the first nine regions chosen by CMS to implement the competitive bidding demonstration. As I learned more about the design of the program, it became clear that CMS did not foresee the unintended consequences that could result, including the possibility that patients could lose the personal relationship they've developed with their local provider, in turn compromising their quality of care; or the possibility that small suppliers, which make up well over 90 percent of the Nation's medical equipment providers, would not be able to compete in the new market. I also realized that western Pennsylvania would be disproportionately impacted by competitive bidding because of our large Medicare population and the growing medical device industry that is key to the success of our region's economy. After a poor start to the competitive bidding program in 2008, Congress intervened and passed legislation that I helped introduce to direct CMS to delay the program for 18 months.…”