Political Quotes

“The bill before us today expands an annual regulatory schedule for Medicare Advantage (MA) payment rates so that stakeholders have the necessary time to review and provide feedback to ensure seniors continue to have access to quality, low-cost plans of their choosing. H.R. 2507, the Increasing Regulatory Fairness Act of 2015, was introduced by my colleague, Representative Kevin Brady (TX), Chairman of the Health Subcommittee of Ways and Means, and I cosponsored along with Mike Thompson (CA), Pete Sessions (TX), and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). This bipartisan, commonsense legislation will facilitate greater understanding and collaboration between industry stakeholders and regulators, and will offer a greater opportunity for public input in the establishment of policies affecting the MA and Part D plans. Since 2006, when the Medicare Modernization Act's official implementation, and the Medicare Advantage/Part D call letter and rate notice were around 16 pages long, a two-week comment period may have been adequate. Today, however, that document has grown to nearly 150 pages--and the comment period--still just 15 days--is simply not enough time for plans that now serve one-third of the Medicare population to analyze and gather substantive comments on increasingly complex policy changes. This bill would increase that comment period to 30 days, a strong step towards regulatory fairness for the successful Medicare Advantage/Part D programs.…”