White House, hospitals reach deal on Medicare, Medicaid
Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and representatives of the hospital industry jointly announced Wednesday a deal on billions in Medicare and Medicaid payments over the next decade.
To help pay for the expected high cost of a major healthcare system overhaul, hospitals across the country agreed to give up $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments over the next 10 years.
“Reform is coming. It is on track; it is coming,” Biden said Wednesday. “We have tried for decades – for decades – to fix a broken system, and we have never, in my entire tenure in public life, been this close. We have never been as close as we are today, and things remain on track.”
“We have these hospitals working with us, and we have the pharmaceutical industry working with us; we have doctors and nurses and health care providers with us; we have the American public behind us,” Biden added. “And everyone sees that we need change. And in my view, we’re going to get that change, and we’re going to get it this year.”
Biden said the parties came to a consensus that “health care savings can be achieved by improving efficiencies [and] realigning incentives to emphasize quality care instead of quantity of procedures.”
The White House released a background statement further explaining the agreement:
As part of this agreement, hospitals have committed to support policies that will help pay for health reform and reduce overall costs to the Medicare program. These reductions will be achieved through a combination of payment reforms, including additional reductions in hospital’s annual inflationary updates. They will be more than offset as health reform takes hold and hospitals bear less of the financial burden of caring for the uninsured or underinsured.
In addition, in the area of delivery system reform, hospitals are reaffirming their long-standing commitment to improve quality and reduce costs in the health care system by supporting initiatives such as value-based purchasing; testing ways to better integrate care; and taking steps to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions.
The savings the industry has agreed to achieve are consistent with the policy goals set forth by the President and the Congress to expand coverage, reduce health care costs and transform the health care delivery system.
The Associated Press published a story this afternoon that gives more details on the deal and the latest on the Congressional healthcare debate.
The Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation (GMHC), the non-profit board that manages the Grady Health System, meets Monday July 13. Grady Memorial Hospital relies heavily on Medicare and Medicaid payments to get by and I wonder what officials will have to say, if anything, about today’s deal.