 merrie says: From wheelchairs and walkers to orthopedic shoes and needles, Medicare buys tens of thousands of products every day for elderly Americans. "There were products that we had as much as 75 percent savings. The average was 29 percent," said Mike Leavitt, the former HHS secretary who oversaw the program. "It would have saved billions if we could've actually implemented it, but Congress deferred it. In Washington speak, that means we put it off forever," he said. Leavitt blames Congressmen Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for introducing legislation that terminated the contracts and postponed the program for 18 months. Leavitt says the congressional intervention helps explain why many are suspicious of claims that Washington can cut enough waste to actually pay for health care reform, as President Obama told a joint session of Congress last month. "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan," “The problem here is one man’s waste is another man’s living, and whenever there is an effort put forward to actually make an efficiency, someone goes on the offensive and hires lobbyists and does what they can to constrain Congress from doing it,” Leavitt said. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the health care industry is currently spending $2 million a day lobbying Congress. Leavitt’s pilot program died after small business suppliers claimed it would have put them out of business. Eventually, industry agreed to help pay the cost of terminated contracts that Medicare had already negotiated. Industry officials argued the new system would unfairly disqualify some suppliers, a... |
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