Groups tell lawmakers the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is wasteful

A coalition of more than 40 organizations is calling for the elimination of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, calling the center a “failure” that needs to be a part of getting rid of government waste.

In a letter to lawmakers Monday, the organizations pointed out that the CMMI was created by the Obama-era Affordable Care Act of 2010 to find ways to improve health care and reduce costs, but has lost billions of dollars between 2011 and 2020.

“CMMI has a guaranteed source of funding that gives unelected bureaucrats broad authority to make health care policy decisions without any obligation to succeed. The lack of accountability and transparency and disregard for outcomes are costly for taxpayers and dangerous for patients,” the organizations wrote. “CMMI is a failure. It is time for Congress to shut it down.”

The groups include the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, Council for Affordable Health Coverage and the Coalition Against Socialized Medicine, among others.

The Congressional Budget Office originally estimated that CMMI would save $2.8 billion in federal spending between 2011 and 2020. However, a 2023 report from the office estimated that CMMI’s activities increased spending by $5.4 billion in that time period.

CBO estimated that CMMI would increase net federal spending by $1.3 billion by 2030.

The organizations cited a 2021 report from Health Management Associates, a health care consulting firm, that found only four out of 172 Medicare models that CMMI has implemented “have met the statutory criteria of lower spending or improved quality and been expanded — or introduced — to the Medicare program nationwide.”

“Common sense dictates that any federal program with such an abysmal rate of success should not be given any further opportunity to waste the taxpayers’ money,” the organizations wrote. “Yet CMMI’s defenders argue the agency will eventually ‘get better.’ Fifteen years of failure prove otherwise. No private enterprise with this record would be allowed to continue operating, let alone expand its authority.”

Health care affordability has been a hot topic in Congress as Democrats have fought to extend Obamacare subsidies that expired at the end of last year, leading to a 43-day-long government shutdown.

President Trump and Republicans have railed against Obamacare, saying it’s broken. The president unveiled a health care plan last month that is designed to deliver government assistance directly to consumers instead of to insurance companies, like Obamacare was designed.

The program also calls for Congress to make law his “most-favored nation” drug prices that Mr. Trump has negotiated with top-name drugmakers.