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80–504 2013

MEDPAC’S JUNE REPORT TO CONGRESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 19, 2012 

Serial 112–HL12 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 


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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman 

WALLY HERGER, California 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

RICK BERG, North Dakota 

DIANE BLACK, Tennessee 

TOM REED, New York 

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan 

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

JENNIFER M. SAFAVIAN, Staff Director and General Counsel 

JANICE MAYS, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH 

WALLY HERGER, California, Chairman 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of June 19, 2012 announcing the hearing .............................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Glen M. Hackbarth, Chairman, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Testimony ................................................................................................................... 6 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Questions .................................................................................................................. 47 

PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

American Registry of Radiologic Technologists ..................................................... 52 

Council for Affordable Health Insurance ............................................................... 54 

Integrated Health Care Coalition ........................................................................... 59 

Medicaid Health Plans of America ......................................................................... 61 

Medicare Rights Center .......................................................................................... 69 

NAIC ......................................................................................................................... 74 

National Home Infusion Association ...................................................................... 78 

National PACE Association .................................................................................... 85 

National Rural Health Association ........................................................................ 87 

National Senior Citizens Law Center .................................................................... 90 

The Center for Fiscal Equity .................................................................................. 94 


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MEDPAC’S JUNE REPORT TO CONGRESS 

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2012 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

1100, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Wally Herger [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

[The advisory of the hearing follows:] 


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HEARING ADVISORY 

Chairman Herger Announces Hearing on 

MedPAC’s June Report to Congress 

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 

House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Wally Herger (R–CA) 

today announced that the Subcommittee on Health will hold a hearing on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) June report to the Congress. The 

report details the Commission’s recommendations for reforming Medicare and its 

payment policies. The Subcommittee will hear from MedPAC’s Chairman, Glenn 

Hackbarth. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, June 19, 2012, in 1100 

Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 A.M. 

In view of the limited time available to hear the witness, oral testimony at this 

hearing will be from the invited witness only. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. 

BACKGROUND: 

MedPAC advises Congress on Medicare payment policy. The Commission is required by law to submit its second annual report on Medicare payment policies by 

June 15. 

In its June report, MedPAC suggested reforming traditional Medicare benefit design to adjust beneficiary cost-sharing requirements and to encourage beneficiaries 

to be more involved in their care, providing illustrative options for improved patient 

cost sharing. The Commission also examined care coordination for dual-eligible 

beneficiaries, provided recommendations for improvement to the Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), reviewed the type of care provided through 

Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans, and offered a critique of the demonstration program for dual-eligible beneficiaries currently being implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

Also included in MedPAC’s June report is a statutorily-mandated examination of 

several topics related to Medicare beneficiaries residing in rural areas, including access to care, quality of care, adequacy of payment, and potential payment adjustments. The Commission did not supply recommendations in reviewing rural Medicare payment policies, but suggested principles to better inform Congress going forward. 

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Herger stated, ‘‘Given the current fiscal 

issues facing the Medicare program, it is critical that the Committee ensures that taxpayer and beneficiary dollars are being spent appropriately. 

MedPAC’s thoughts on reforming Medicare’s benefit design are important 

as the Committee considers much needed and long-overdue structural improvements to the program. Similarly, as Congress explores how to address 

the needs of beneficiaries living in rural areas while fulfilling its responsibility to taxpayers, MedPAC’s insight as to whether special provider payment adjustments are warranted is also helpful.’’ 

FOCUS OF THE HEARING: 

The hearing will focus on MedPAC’s June 2012 Report to Congress. 

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: 

Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee 


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website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, 

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/, select ‘‘Hearings.’’ Select the hearing for which you 

would like to submit, and click on the link entitled, ‘‘Click here to provide a submission for the record.’’ Once you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word document, in compliance 

with the formatting requirements listed below, by the close of business on Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Finally, please note that due to the change in House mail policy, 

the U.S. Capitol Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office 

Buildings. For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202) 

225–3943 or (202) 225–3625. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: 

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing 

record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, 

but we reserve the right to format it according to our guidelines. Any submission 

provided to the Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for 

the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for written 

comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will 

be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee. 

1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in Word format and MUST 

NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised 

that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. 

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing. 

Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material 

not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use 

by the Committee. 

3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose 

behalf the witness appears. A supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the 

name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness. 

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. 

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226– 

3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). 

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. 

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World 

Wide Web at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov

f 

/. 

Chairman HERGER. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Today we will be hearing from the Medicare Payment Advisory 

Commission, MedPAC, on the analysis and recommendations contained in its June 2012 report. This subcommittee has heard from 

numerous witnesses over the last year and a half about the financial challenges facing the Medicare program. 

In fact, the Medicare trustees reported in April that the program 

will go bankrupt in 2024, a mere 12 years from today. Clearly time 

is of the essence. 

The subcommittee has also heard from several experts on ways 

to reform and improve the program in order to bring the program 

into the 21st century, slowed the rate of growth and protect Medicare for future generations. It is in this vein that we welcome 

MedPAC chairman, Glenn Hackbarth here today, to discuss the 

commission’s June report. 


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The commission has scrutinized the design of the traditional 

Medicare benefit and found it lacking. The traditional Medicare 

benefit consists of a patchwork of premiums, deductibles, copayments and co-insurance. It neither encourages appropriate utilization of care nor protects beneficiaries from the high out-of-pocket 

costs. Because of this fragmented structure, nearly 90 percent of 

Medicare beneficiaries have some type of supplemental insurance, 

and the evidence shows that supplemental coverage that eliminates 

some of the beneficiaries’ cost-sharing responsibility result in higher program costs and higher premiums for all beneficiaries. 

I look forward to hearing more about MedPAC’s recommendation 

on how to design a new benefit structure that meets and reflects 

the health care needs of today’s seniors rather than remaining 

trapped in the 1960s. 

The June report also contains a chapter that examines several 

topics related to Medicare beneficiaries in rural areas. While maintaining an appropriate level and quality of care in rural areas is 

a challenge, it is what our constituents deserve. This issue is of 

critical importance to me and the rural northern California district 

that I am privileged to represent. It is also important to many of 

the members of this panel as well as to maintaining a high-functioning health system. We must ensure that payments made on behalf of beneficiaries and taxpayers are appropriate. MedPAC took 

on this challenge and provided some suggestions on how Congress 

may devise policies to maintain rural beneficiaries access to quality 

care while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. 

This information is especially helpful as Congress assesses a series of special payment adjustments which are set to expire by the 

end of the year. 

There are no one-size-fits-all answers to these challenging health 

care questions, but in light of Medicare’s and our Nation’s financial 

challenges, we must critically review our existing payment policies 

to ensure they are accomplishing their goals. 

Finally, I am eager to discuss MedPAC’s view on how to better 

improve care coordination for Medicare beneficiaries, including the 

dual-eligible population. The dual eligibles are among our Nation’s 

most vulnerable and have unique challenges. There are several current delivery systems within Medicare that integrate care for these 

beneficiaries which show promise. However, with the new duals 

demonstration program being rolled out by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, some of the past successes may be at 

risk. 

Further integration is clearly necessary, but I am concerned that 

the administration’s unilateral action to address this population’s 

needs may undermine the protections guaranteed to all Medicare 

beneficiaries. This is a critical issue to get right the first time, and 

I know that MedPAC is concerned about it as well. 

Before I recognize Ranking Member Stark for the purpose of an 

opening statement, I ask unanimous consent that all members’ 

written statements be included in the record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

I now recognize Ranking Member Stark for 5 minutes for the 

purpose of his opening statement. 


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Mr. STARK. Thank you, Chairman Herger, and thank you, 

Chairman Hackbarth, for being with us today. 

I look forward to your suggestions on how we can improve Medicare, and I want to congratulate and thank you for accepting an 

appointment for another term as chairman. 

Medicare is one of our Nation’s best programs, but it has always 

been a work in progress, and it needs ongoing fine-tuning and 

changing to keep it relevant so that it will operate in the best interest of the millions of seniors and Americans living with disabilities who rely on this program. 

For that reason, I am concerned about the proposals or any proposals that would shift costs to beneficiaries. Doing so I think 

would devastate them. The majority of them already live on tight 

fixed incomes, and what is more, research has shown that increased cost sharing leads to a reduction not only in unnecessary 

health care but these increased costs also discourage people from 

receiving necessary health care. 

The home health copayment, for instance, I think is largely ascribed to be used by old, sick, poor widows, and raising the price 

that they have to pay is just one more Republican effort to deny 

equal rights to women. 

I would like to remind all of us that MedPAC’s report has given 

us a bunch of recommendations for payment updates that would 

yield savings without squeezing the beneficiaries. As we look to 

year-end business and needing to fix the physician payment system, and there are other offsets available as well. The overseas 

contingency operation’s money is available to us, and I dislike the 

notion that we need to increase costs for beneficiaries in order to 

fix the physician payment system. 

I look forward to your thoughts, Chairman, and for the people eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, I hope you will address this idea 

that Medicare is going to go broke one of these days. The adjustments necessary to keep Medicare alive for the next 75 years I 

think are less than a 3 percent increase in premiums. And while 

I hope we don’t have to do that, there are many other options, age 

differences changes that we have already done, raise, allowing 

earned—unearned income to be used in the tax, a host of changes 

all of which are modest and could would keep Medicare alive, and 

I hope that you will address some of those options that are available to us. 

I thank you. 

I thank, again, Chairman Herger, for holding this hearing and 

inviting you back to inform us about the state of Medicare. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

Today we are joined by Glenn Hackbarth, the chairman of 

MedPAC. Mr. Hackbarth has served as MedPAC’s chairman for 10 

years and is appearing before this subcommittee for the second 

time this Congress. 

We are pleased to have you with us once again. You will have 

5 minutes to present your testimony. Your entire written statement 

will be made a part of this record. You are now recognized for 5 

minutes. 


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STATEMENT OF GLENN M. HACKBARTH, J.D., CHAIRMAN, 

MEDICARE PAYMENT ADVISORY COMMISSION 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Thank you, Chairman Herger and Ranking 

Member Stark, and other Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to talk about our June 2012 report. 

The report contains six chapters and covers quite a bit of ground, 

including reforming Medicare’s benefit design, care coordination, 

care coordination, in particular, for dually eligible beneficiaries, 

risk adjustment in Medicare Advantage plans, serving rural beneficiaries and Medicare coverage for home infusion services. 

In the interest of time, I am going to focus my opening comments 

on just two of those chapters, the one on benefit design and the one 

on serving rural beneficiaries. 

Our chapter on benefit design includes a unanimous recommendation that the Congress should redesign Medicare’s benefit 

package with the following elements: First, no change in aggregate 

beneficiary cost sharing at the point of service; second, add to the 

program an out-of-pocket maximum, catastrophic limit as it is 

sometimes called; third, wherever possible use fixed dollar specific, 

dollar amount copays instead of a percentage co-insurance; fourth, 

give the Secretary of HHS broad authority to modify the benefit 

package within parameters established by the Congress consistent 

with the principles of value-based insurance design; and finally, 

impose an additional charge on supplemental insurance purchased 

by Medicare beneficiaries. 

This recommendation is based on the following assessments and 

conclusions by MedPAC. First of all, cost sharing at the point of 

service is a blunt instrument that nonetheless is an essential tool 

in a fee-for-service, free choice of provider insurance program like 

Medicare. That said, we do not believe that aggregate patient cost 

sharing should be increased above the current level. We do believe 

however that the current structure is outdated, and its very design 

creates uncertainty and thereby fosters demand for supplemental 

insurance coverage. 

We believe an effective redesign of the Medicare benefit would 

reduce uncertainty by adding catastrophic coverage and converting 

co-insurance to fixed dollar copays. 

We do not favor prohibiting supplemental coverage. But we do 

believe that beneficiaries should bear at least a portion of the 

added cost that that supplemental coverage imposes on the Medicare program and the taxpayers. 

Now let me turn to the chapter on rural care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act asked MedPAC to report on the following aspects of rural health care for Medicare beneficiaries. First, 

access to care, quality of care, the adequacy of Medicare payments 

to rural providers, and the appropriateness of the special payment 

adjustments in the Medicare payment system for rural providers. 

To respond to your request, we collected information from beneficiary surveys and focus groups, site visits to rural providers, 

Medicare claims and cost reports, Medicare reports on quality of 

care for rural providers, as well as meetings with many associations that have an interest and expertise in rural issues. 

Our major findings are as follows: On access, we find that there 

are large differences in service use across regions in the United 


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States, a fact that is well known to this subcommittee, but only 

small differences between urban and rural providers in the same 

region. To us, this suggests that access to care is similar for rural 

and urban beneficiaries. We also find that beneficiaries’ satisfaction 

with access is similar for rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries. 

On the issue of quality of care, we find that quality provided by 

rural providers is similar for most types of services, although rural 

hospitals have somewhat higher mortality and score less well on 

some process measures of care. 

In part, these differences may be due to lower volume in rural 

hospitals and different incentives for coding accurately as well as 

the need to provide emergency services in remote areas. 

Third, on the issue of payment adequacy, we find that Medicare 

payments are comparable for rural and urban hospitals, and then, 

as for the rural special payments of which there are a dozen, we 

have evaluated each using three criteria: One, is the payment provision targeted to isolated providers; two, is the magnitude of the 

adjustment empirically justified; and three, does the special payment preserve incentives for cost consciousness? 

For many of the 12 special payment provisions, targeting could 

be tighter in the magnitude of the adjustment that are justified, although the same might be said of some of the urban special payments as well. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hackbarth follows:] 


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Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

As you noted in your report and as this subcommittee discussed 

at a previous hearing, the Medicare benefit has not changed in 

structure since its inception in 1965. 


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Can you please explain why the commission felt it was necessary 

to offer recommendations on how the fee-for-service benefit should 

be redesigned? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. The most important element of any insurance 

program should be to protect people against the very high cost of 

illness. And as you well know, Medicare does not include any catastrophic limit on out-of-patient costs. In addition to that, the existing structure of patient cost sharing is quite complicated and very 

difficult for many beneficiaries to understand. We have this complex web of copayments and co-insurance that can be, frankly, a little bit bewildering to all of us, not to mention to many Medicare 

beneficiaries. 

That lack of catastrophic coverage and the complexity of the benefit’s cost sharing creates uncertainty and anxiety among Medicare 

beneficiaries and we believe contributes to the demand for supplemental insurance as a way of buying protection against this uncertainty. 

We think that by redesigning the benefit package along the lines 

we have described, we could update it and make it more consistent 

with modern benefit design, reduce uncertainty and more fairly distribute the burden of costs for Medicare beneficiaries. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

As someone who represents a rural district, I am well aware of 

how challenging it can be for some rural providers to remain viable, and I completely agree that we need to make sure that rural 

beneficiaries have access to quality care while also being responsible to the taxpayers footing the bill for the program. 

As Congress has to make tough decisions pertaining to specific 

payment adjustment policies, can you elaborate on your principles 

for evaluating special payments with an example of how to apply 

them? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Sure. So our three principles are that a special payment adjustment should be targeted to isolated providers. 

By that, we mean a provider that if that provider were to go out 

of existence, that it would compromise needed access to care for 

Medicare beneficiaries. 

Second, we think that the amount of the adjustment ought to be 

based on data as opposed to just grabbed out of the air. So an example of that would be if we adjust for low volume, providers have 

higher costs when they have low volume; MedPAC has recommended in the past that there be a low volume adjustment. But 

we think that the amount of the adjustment ought to be consistent 

with how much costs increase when you have low volume, and we 

don’t think that the current low volume adjustment is justified in 

that way. 

The third principle is that wherever possible, we would like the 

payment adjustment to be an add on to a prospective payment, 

which retains the incentives for cost consciousness, as opposed to 

just moving to cost reimbursement, which would eliminate those 

incentives. 

Chairman HERGER. I appreciate the comission’s work to figure 

out which approaches can improve the coordination of care in our 

too often fragmented health care system. I am interested in the noVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:37 Oct 23, 2013 Jkt 080504 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\80504.XXX 80504

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tion of establishing payment policy that rewards good patient outcomes. 

In fact, we heard testimony from a private health plan at a previous subcommittee hearing that uses such an approach that providers decide who they want to collaborate with and collectively determine what they need to do to provide high-quality efficient care. 

Does the commission believe that giving providers the flexibility to 

determine how best the care for their patient population is a promising approach? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. One of the lessons that we draw from the 

demonstration projects that have been run in CMS on care coordination is that to be successful, a program of care coordination has 

to be carefully woven into the practice environment where it occurs. It is not possible to achieve good care coordination by imposing it externally. It is not the sort of thing that you can design from 

a distance and just sort of plug into a local health care delivery 

system. 

Instead, it needs to be more organic and part of the care delivery. 

So our general approach is to say that Medicare should move away 

from fee-for-service payment to payment systems that establish 

both financial and clinical responsibility for a defined population or 

for an episode of care and then allow providers the flexibility to 

adapt care coordination to their particular circumstances but hold 

them accountable for the results, both on quality and cost. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

Mr. Stark is now recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. STARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, Chairman Hackbarth, thank you very much. 

In reforming the benefit design, you have got both a cap to protect high out-of-pocket costs and changes to the supplemental insurance, and I have reservations about the Medigap policy which 

would increase costs for beneficiaries, but I agree that the catastrophic cap would be an improvement. 

I am afraid that some people might separate this and do the 

Medigap policy without the cap. And why do you recommend that 

both of these policies happen together? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. We, first of all, let me say we do think 

that they should be done together. And as I said in my opening 

comment, we think that they are linked. In fact, that one of the 

reasons that beneficiaries want to have supplemental coverage is 

because of the inadequacies in the design of the existing Medicare 

benefit. And so we believe that if we correct those flaws, add catastrophic coverage, make the cost sharing more predictable and understandable, that that will reduce some of the demand for supplemental coverage, and then, in that context, we think it is appropriate to say if the beneficiary continues to want to buy supplemental coverage, they should face at least a portion of the additional costs that imposes on Medicare. 

Mr. STARK. In your recommendations, the current cost sharing 

stays the same in the aggregate. So even though some beneficiaries 

see costs go up and some will see them go down, the average beneficiary will stay the same. 

Now why was this important as a principle? 


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Mr. HACKBARTH. When we look at the Medicare benefit package and compare it to benefit packages offered in the private market, we don’t think that the existing Medicare benefit package is 

too rich compared to what exists for, say, a privately insured population. In fact, given the population covered, the elderly with higher 

health care costs, if anything it might be too lean not too rich. 

We recognize of course the fiscal constraints that exist, and so we 

adopted the guiding principle that we ought to not make it richer 

or leaner, keep it as it is in terms of actuarial value but reallocate 

the costs. 

Mr. STARK. But you have got, with the catastrophic cap, the average liability you say remains the same, but won’t there be some 

will see the cost go down by about 250 and the others up. But, as 

I understand it, you are going to have a lot more see their costs 

go up than down. Is there any reason for that? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, that is the way—— 

Mr. STARK. How it comes? 

Mr. HACKBARTH [continuing]. That is the way the numbers 

work. Generally speaking, the beneficiaries who would see their 

costs go down are those that have very high expenses and benefit 

from the catastrophic limit. This is what insurance should be 

doing. This is the first responsibility of a good insurance program. 

The beneficiaries who would see their costs go up under our redesign would be beneficiaries who tend to use fewer services especially the beneficiaries that use only Part B services and do not 

have a hospital admission. 

It is important to note, though, that if you look at 1 year, a 1 

year snapshot, you have got this array of winners and losers. But 

for any given beneficiary, the risk of incurring high cost goes up 

over time. So if you look at the measure of the risk of having a hospital admission in a given year, in any 1 year, the average beneficiary has a one in five risk of being hospitalized. But if you look 

over a 4-year period, it is one in two; half of all beneficiaries will 

have at least one hospitalization in a 4-year period. 

So having that extra coverage for a catastrophic illness we think 

makes a lot of sense and, over time, will benefit most beneficiaries. 

Mr. STARK. Thanks again for your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

Mr. Johnson is recognized. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Hackbarth, in your recommendations dealing with additional 

charge for supplemental insurance, I got to agree with Pete. The 

commission feels supplemental insurance coverage leads to increased utilization of services. 

Can you talk about why you think it is important to address 

Medicare supplemental coverage and what effects your proposal 

would have on Medicare spending and beneficiary behavior? 

I am of the belief that if a guy thinks he needs extra coverage 

over and above Medicare, he ought to be able to buy it and not pay 

a premium. Go ahead. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We share your belief that if a beneficiary 

thinks that they need supplemental coverage, that they should be 


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free to buy that coverage, and that is why we didn’t propose any 

regulatory restriction on the ability to buy supplemental coverage. 

Having said that, the evidence to us is clear that that private decision to buy supplemental coverage increases costs for the Medicare program and the taxpayers. And we think that it is appropriate for the beneficiaries who make that private decision to buy 

supplemental coverage to face at least a portion of the additional 

cost that it imposes on taxpayers. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You say you think. Do you have empirical data 

that proves it? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. That costs go up with supplemental coverage? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes, we do. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And is there any one part of the country where 

it is more prevalent than another? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. That supplemental coverage is more prevalent than others? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. I would be happy to get data on that for you. 

I don’t have the data in my head, Mr. Johnson. I am sure there 

are variations. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Did the commission look at the health 

status of the beneficiaries that were involved in that decision? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And could it be that the beneficiaries are just 

doing treatment and procedures determined by their doctor based 

on their health needs instead of just going to the hospital? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We believe that the evidence shows that the 

increased use in services from supplemental coverage is especially 

large on discretionary services. 

So if you look at the effect of supplemental coverage on hospital 

admissions, the effect is relatively low because most hospital admissions are not discretionary. There is a much larger increase in 

services in the areas that are more discretionary. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Are there any concerns that if some beneficiaries 

don’t have supplemental coverage that they might put off treatment or a procedure until it is too late when the cost is much higher than it could have been? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We think that when you take into effect, take 

into account all of the different effects that imposing the supplemental charge on, the charge on supplemental insurance is warranted and will result in lower costs for the Medicare program. 

Mr. JOHNSON. How do you account for that? What makes you 

believe that? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. The empirical research that we and others 

have done. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am wary of that. What happens to beneficiaries if only some of the recommendations are implemented if 

the additional charge is implemented without making the benefit 

package better for beneficiaries, and could that result in beneficiaries’ dropping their coverage and then having to a pay more for 

their health care in the long term? 


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Mr. HACKBARTH. Again, we think that all of these recommendations that we have made on benefit redesign are a package and should be done together, not one without the other. So we 

would not support the charge on supplemental insurance without 

the benefit redesign. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You know you are charging people for buying 

extra insurance; that is like putting an extra charge on a gasoline 

tank because you are buying gasoline. I don’t understand that. I 

think it is wrong, by the way. 

Go ahead. I think my time is about expired. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. May I respond to that, sir? 

Chairman HERGER. Yes. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. The difference is that the charge on gasoline—the purchase of gasoline does not increase the cost for taxpayers, the individual decision to buy purchase gasoline. The individual decision to purchase supplemental coverage, the costs of 

that are not borne by the beneficiary. Most of the costs of that are 

borne by the taxpayers and that is why we think the charge is warranted in this case. 

Mr. JOHNSON. What about not having any health insurance at 

all? Under your condition, any time we buy health coverage, it is 

going to raise the cost of health care, according to you. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. That is a completely different issue. Here we 

are talking about—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. No, it is not. It is insurance. 

Mr. HACKBARTH [continuing]. Here we are talking about beneficiaries who are insured by the taxpayers making a private decision that further increases the burden borne by the taxpayers. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Mr. Kind is recognized. 

Mr. KIND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. 

Chairman Hackbarth it is always good to have you before us and 

thank you for the work you and MedPAC does in preparing your 

report every year. 

Obviously, as a representative from a large rural district in western Wisconsin, I intend to dial in quickly on what MedPAC is looking at in regards to access to care in rural versus urban areas, and 

certain incentive payments have been established there. I think it 

is important that we continue to review that. But also in light of 

the fact that we are dealing with some pretty tough budgets 

around here, I am sure the incentive payments for rural providers 

is something that will be considered in the context of budget discussions. 

But your report now is not recommending any type of across-theboard cut as far as rural incentive payments, is that correct? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. No, our approach, Mr. Kind, would be to better target adjustments using the criteria that I described earlier: 

Are the providers isolated? Are the adjustments empirically justified? And do they preserve incentives for cost consciousness? 

Mr. KIND. Did you guys do any type of analysis on what the potential impact of some cuts for rural providers might be? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, again, our goal is to target as opposed 

to just cut across the board. And I emphasize that because there 

seems to be some confusion in the commentary on our report that 


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I have seen. And what we want to do is target, not just in order 

to make sure that Medicare dollars are used wisely, but it also has 

very important implications for the quality of care. 

One of the issues that we discuss in our chapter is the relationship between volume of services and quality. And I think you know 

that there is a well established relationship between volume and 

quality. 

To the extent that Medicare supports many low-volume hospitals 

and discourage consolidation, not only does that cost Medicare 

more money, it results in lower quality for rural beneficiaries. 

Mr. KIND. Also, Medicare utilization data shows that Medicare 

use in rural provider settings is substantially higher than in urban 

settings, and I think approximately 46 percent of all patients in 

rural hospitals are Medicare beneficiaries versus 31 percent in 

urban facilities. 

Medicare payment costs therefore have a much greater impact 

obviously in the rural areas than in the urban areas. 

In fact, one study shows that 35 percent of all rural hospitals 

currently operate at a financial loss. 

Do you ever look at the margins when you are doing your analysis and preparing your reports? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes we do. And included in the chapter is a 

summary of that analysis. We closely look at the margins for our 

March report each year, as you know, on payment updates, and we 

repeat some of that analysis here as well as. And many of these 

services, especially in the post-acute area, the margins for rural 

providers, as well as urban providers, are really quite high. 

In the case of hospitals, the margins, Medicare margins for rural 

hospitals are actually higher than the Medicare margins for urban 

hospitals. Granted, however, that they are negative in both cases 

for urban and rurals. We base our payment rate recommendations 

for hospitals, urban and rural alike, on what we refer to as an efficient provider analysis. In fact, that is what we are required to do 

by statute. And suffice to say that we have concluded that both 

urban and rural providers can provide high quality care at the existing Medicare rates. 

Mr. KIND. Obviously, the 800-pound gorilla in this hearing room 

today is waiting to see what the Supreme Court is going to do in 

the Affordable Care Act. I think there are three major revolutions 

occurring in the health care system that are going to continue regardless of what the Court may decide in the next week or two. 

One is obviously the HIT build-up, which is long overdue, and that 

is moving forward now and we need to continue to have that move 

forward. The other is delivery system reform. We have talked about 

this before. And the other, ultimately, is the payment reform. We 

need to keep striving for it so we are getting payments based on 

value or outcome of care. On that last point, what more can be 

done in order to accelerate the payment reform in the health care 

system? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We think there is a lot of good work underway looking at new payment methods, whether it be bundling 

around hospital admissions or medical homes or accountable care 

organizations. And we have long supported those efforts. 

My biggest concern is the pace of change. 


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And the problem that we have collectively, all of us, is that to 

some extent payment reform cannot proceed without delivery system reform. The two are inextricably linked to one another. So I 

think that the critical question for the Medicare program as well 

as for private payers is what are the steps that we can take to accelerate the rate of reorganization of our care delivery system? 

And that is a big topic in its own right. I think part of that is, 

frankly, and I know this isn’t necessarily welcome advice is that 

life under fee-for-service Medicare has to get more difficult. Despite 

the complaints that we often hear from providers about how the 

payments are too little, the reality is that life under fee-for-service 

is still very comfortable for a lot of people, and if we want them 

to migrate to new payment systems, there needs to be consistent 

pressure on fee for service. 

Mr. KIND. I would agree. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Reichert is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing. 

And I think we all recognize that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is important to us and a useful resource for Congress as we move forward to work together to reform the Medicare 

program, to make sure that it is there for generations to come and 

to protect those current beneficiaries. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Hackbarth, and your fellow 16 commissioners for your work, and I know it is not easy work. But I have 

noticed some things in some of the documents provided to us, I 

know that you hold community hearings and try to reach out to 

beneficiaries in the public as you look at your information. But you 

talked about analysis of some of the data, you talked about some 

of the evidence that you have collected. 

And I am just wondering in this process that you are presenting 

today, did you have the opportunity to assemble focus groups or do 

some polling or tele-town halls or town halls to talk to the beneficiaries? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. 

Mr. REICHERT. I think that is important. 

And you said yes. So what did you learn from the beneficiaries 

as you talked about, I think Mr. Johnson’s points, to concerns as 

to whether or not people like to delay or even forgo treatment because of some of the cost increases that he is talking about and the 

copays for supplemental insurance? And if you could comment on, 

what are you hearing from the beneficiaries as you look at these 

changes? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. So what we heard in our focus groups on the 

Medicare benefit package was that, in fact, there is a lot of anxiety 

among beneficiaries about their ability to afford needed care. And 

they also find the existing Medicare payment structure, the existing benefit structure, to be quite confusing and the combination of 

those two things, the fear of high costs and the complexity, are 

very important factors in their wanting to buy supplemental insurance coverage. And I think we can all relate to that. 


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Another important finding from our focus groups was that there 

is a bit of a difference at least between how current Medicare beneficiaries and people who are just before Medicare eligibility look at 

these issues, so that people who are not quite yet eligible for Medicare and are often insured say through employer-sponsored coverage, they are a little bit more willing to say, look, I am prepared 

to have some co-payments at the point of service as long as they 

are understandable and predictable in exchange for a lower premium. They make those trade-offs more readily, whereas current 

beneficiaries are, frankly, more fearful. 

Mr. REICHERT. There is a little fear connected with the current 

beneficiaries—— 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. REICHERT [continuing]. Around this change. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. 

Mr. REICHERT. And is there work being done to help ease the 

concerns or—— 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, we think the most important work that 

can be done is to restructure the benefit package to make it simpler and to provide catastrophic coverage. That is what the focus 

groups tell us beneficiaries want. 

Mr. REICHERT. I was also, just to switch here real quick here, 

move to the section of the report that refers to care coordination, 

fee for service, I was a little surprised to learn that in your comments, there is no overwhelming evidence that care coordination 

saves money and is more efficient. Can you explain that, please? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. So in recent years, CMS has run a substantial number of care coordination demonstrations. There is a variety of different approaches. CBO several months ago did a much 

discussed summary of the evidence and sort of the bottom line conclusion was that there weren’t a whole lot of dramatic clear successes in reducing costs and improving quality. 

We did our own examination of those demonstration projects and 

the results and came away with maybe a slightly different conclusion. What we found is some indication of some things that work, 

but as we look at the overall picture, it seems to us that what 

works in care coordination is highly dependent on the context. And 

as I said in my earlier comment, care coordination to be effective 

in reducing costs and improving quality needs to be organic, needs 

to be part of the care delivery system. It can’t be readily imposed 

from the outside in sort of a plug-in module, if you will. 

And so the conclusion, the policy conclusion that we draw from 

that if is if we want good care coordination—and I know we all 

do—the best approach is to create both clinical and financial accountability for a group of providers, have clear measurements of 

success, and then give them some room to adapt care coordination 

approaches to their particular circumstance. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Mr. Pascrell is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Hackbarth, we did not have a hearing on the March 

MedPAC report. So I want to take the opportunity to ask a question about it if I may. 


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As we look toward the end of the year and the need for a physician or other health care, health extenders, I am worried that my 

colleagues across the aisle hope to offset a big chunk of the cost on 

the backs of beneficiaries. I am not saying that is what their objective is; I am saying I am concerned about it. And that is totally unacceptable in view of what the whole purpose of the health care act 

was. 

We have many viable offsets. You have been pretty specific about 

some of them. Can you remind us of the recommendations from the 

March report with regard to market basket updates? What is the 

policy justification for these recommendations? And would these 

recommendations yield a saving? 

The MedPAC estimates in March recommendations would save 

$60 billion over 10 years. So I would like you to answer those three 

questions with regard to what one of our major objectives with 

health care reform was all about. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. So, in our March report, we had the series 

of recommendations most of them related to the update, the rate 

increase for the various provider groups. In the aggregate, as you 

say, our rough estimate is that if those recommendations in our 

March report were adopted, they would save roughly $60 billion 

over about 10 years. 

Now I would add the caveat that of course that we don’t do the 

estimates, the official estimates for the Congress, CBO makes those 

estimates. But that is our rough estimate to the savings. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Can you remind us of the recommendations 

that would bring this about? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. So, as you know, Mr. Pascrell, we make 

update recommendations for each of the different provider groups, 

hospital, inpatient, outpatient services, physicians, all of the postacute providers, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, 

long-term care hospitals and patient rehab hospitals, ESRD providers, across the whole board. In each case, what we do is what 

we refer to as a payment adequacy analysis where we look at the 

variety of different type of data on access to care, quality of care, 

access to capital for providers. There are margins on Medicare 

business, and that is the foundation, the analytic foundation for the 

recommendation. 

This sort of summarizes the recommendations across the board. 

None of our update recommendations were higher than 1 percent. 

We recommended 1 percent for hospital inpatient outpatient services and for dialysis facilities. 

All of the others were less than 1 percent or zero, and in a few 

cases, we recommended rebasing of the rates, which would actually 

be a reduction in the rates over time. Specifically, we recommended 

rebasing for skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies. 

Mr. PASCRELL. I would recommend, Mr. Chairman, that the 

members make sure they go back to this March report, which is 

pretty succinct, I thought more so than usual, and this cost savings 

is not just a myth, and whether we are talking about CBO numbers or anybody else’s numbers; we are talking about real savings. 

And that is what we need in health care reform, one of the things 

we need in health care reform. 


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And I have one other quick question if I may, do you believe that 

health care reform does indeed move us toward a Medicare program that pays providers based on the quality of their services and 

not the quantity? Do you think that that is what it actually does? 

Or will do? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, as I said, in response to Mr. Kind, we 

do believe that there is a lot of important work underway in terms 

of changing the Medicare payment systems, better reward quality 

and cost. I am happy to say that much of that work is based on 

or related to MedPAC recommendations in the past. 

So we are encouraged to see that going forward. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, I would ask you the final question if I may before I stop here. 

Chairman HERGER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. PASCRELL. If I may ask a question. 

Chairman HERGER. The gentleman’s time has expired, but you 

are welcome to come and visit with me. We will move on. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman HERGER. Dr. Price is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And it is good to see you again, Dr. Hackbarth. We appreciate 

the information that you provided, and I want to echo Mr. 

Pascrell’s commanding the March 12th report because I think it 

outlines a lot of things that may or may not result in a higher quality of health care. The decisions that we make here and the decisions that you make have real life consequences out in the real 

world. Seniors who receive their health care are affected by the 

things that you recommend and the things that we do. 

In response to Mr. Reichert’s question to you, have you talked to 

beneficiaries—you said that you had been in town halls and you 

talked to beneficiaries—have any of those beneficiaries said that 

they wanted their life under fee-for-service to get more difficult? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. No, I don’t think that beneficiaries typically 

think in those terms. I think that generally speaking, Medicare 

beneficiaries like the Medicare program, I don’t think they think in 

terms of fee-for-service versus others so much. 

Mr. PRICE. But in fact that is what you said wasn’t it? You said 

that ‘‘life under fee for service has to get more difficult.’’ 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. 

Mr. PRICE. Tell me what that means. What does that mean for 

the patient? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We believe—— 

Mr. PRICE. What does that mean for the patient? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Better care I believe. 

Mr. PRICE. Life getting more difficult means better care? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Life getting more difficult for fee-for-service 

providers, encourage them, encouraging them to move to new payment methods that are more focused on producing high quality 

care at a lower cost. 

Mr. PRICE. Help me understand this thing. Life getting more 

difficult, you want life to get more difficult for the folks taking care 

of the patients? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. And open doors for them to new payment 

methods. 


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Mr. PRICE. When life gets more difficult for the doctors of this 

land, how does life get better for the patients of this land? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. The key point, Dr. Price, is that our goal is 

not just to make life more difficult for doctors but also we want to 

create new opportunities. 

Mr. PRICE. So one of your goals is to make life more difficult for 

doctors I guess I just heard you say. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We think that there needs to be pressure on 

fee for service to encourage people to move to new payment models 

that better reward quality while keeping costs down. 

Mr. PRICE. I think this is really illuminating. And I appreciate 

your being candid. I think this is extremely helpful because 

MedPAC believes that fee for service ought to go away. Right? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Over time, we think—— 

Mr. PRICE. That we ought not have individual patients being 

able to find an individual doctor that they trust to say I want, 

please, for you to provide this service for me and under a fee-forservice model that—— 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Actually, no, we didn’t say that. And I’m glad 

you raised this. We believe that Medicare beneficiaries should have 

options for their insurance coverage. 

Mr. PRICE. Is fee for service one of those options? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes, and there could be plans under Medicare 

Advantage, for example, that say that what we want to do is offer 

old style fee-for-service and if there is a market—— 

Mr. PRICE. In that ‘‘life more difficult’’ arena? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. If patients and physicians and other providers choose that, we think that option should be available. 

Mr. PRICE. In your March 12th MedPAC report, you say that access, Medicare, new Medicare patients needing access to physicians 

is becoming more difficult. In fact, your survey found that one in 

four Medicare patients looking for a new physician were having 

trouble finding one. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Primary care physician, yes. 

Mr. PRICE. Tell me, do you believe that an increased or an outof-pocket spending limits or—and decreasing the beneficiary cost 

protections reducing those, does that increase or decrease access to 

care? 

If I take the information from your March report, which says 

that new Medicare patients are having trouble finding docs, and I 

take the information from your June report, that says there ought 

to be a cap and you ought to have copays, how—do you have any 

data that demonstrates that your recommendation in this report 

will increase Medicare patients’ access to primary care physicians? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We think that the—— 

Mr. PRICE. I know you think that. Do you have any data? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. The response to the problems in access to primary care is to increase payment rates specifically for primary care 

services. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Multiple reports made it clear that we think 

that the payment rates for primary care services are too low, and 

that is a major factor in access problems, not just for Medicare 

beneficiaries but for all Americans to primary care. 


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Mr. PRICE. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I think that 

I would like to follow up with questions with Mr. Hackbarth in 

writing and encourage others to do the same. Thank you. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Blumenauer is recognized. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. 

Well, I want to just follow up on this line of inquiry, give you a 

chance to elaborate. First of all, I didn’t hear you say that you 

wanted to make life more difficult for patients, and I think it—I 

am inferring from what you say that having a situation where the 

default is fee for service and rewards volume over value may be 

more convenient for some providers but is not necessarily the best 

optimal care and is not necessarily in the best interests of patients. 

I don’t want you to be trapped into saying because you—I understood you to say you wanted to have some, a little friction so the 

default isn’t what is easiest but necessarily not optimal care. Do 

you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Did I misunderstand 

what you were saying? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. You are correct, Mr. Blumenauer, in your description. I ran a very large physician group in Boston, 600 physicians, and I feel like I understand physicians pretty well and work 

pretty well with them. And our group was able to practice very, 

very high quality medicine, as good as anybody in Boston, a pretty 

tough market, and do so at a lower cost, and that is because we 

weren’t dependent on fee for service. 

We were paid through other means that actually allowed us to 

better focus resources on the needs of patients, do things in care 

coordination without worrying about whether they fit a Medicare 

billing code and deploy resources with one goal in mind, how do we 

take this pool of resources and get the best quality of care for our 

patients. What we think is that over time, the whole system would 

benefit from moving away from fee for service and all of its rigidity 

toward a system much more focused on value for patients and for 

the taxpayers who pay the bill. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. And nothing that you have suggested 

would eliminate the option for people who want to use what for 

most of the United States is being clear is being outmoded and ineffective, but people could still have fee-for-service options if they 

wanted to do the old style, reward volume over value. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. A consistent theme over the years in our recommendations, and it shows up again in our benefit redesign recommendations, is that we don’t want to deny choices. We think 

that people ought to have choices, including Medicare beneficiaries, 

but they need to start seeing the cost implications of the choices 

that they make, and that applies both to patients and providers. 

That is the only way that we are going to deal with our cost challenges in Medicare and the broader health care system. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. But you are seeking to do this in a holistic 

fashion. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Right. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Rather than a blunt instrument. I note 

with no small amount of irony that some of my Republican friends 

are all in favor of shifting much higher costs on to the backs of senior recipients and looking for systems that have higher copays, that 


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have higher out-of-pocket expenses, more confusion, if you will, and 

complexity, but this is fine in the aggregate, but somehow when 

you are offering things that are more nuanced and fine tuned that 

somehow we are diving in and suggesting that this is something 

that is negative or nefarious, and I just, with all due respect, reject 

that notion. 

I have deeply appreciated what MedPAC has done over the years 

in terms of trying in an unvarnished fashion to give us some useful 

information. It is Congress that is continually adding complexity. 

It is Congress that hasn’t stepped up for decades, and now we 

reach a point where it can’t continue as it is. 

I see my time is about to expire. I was very interested in pursuing the transitional care process in terms of care coordination. I 

will probably submit something to you in writing on that because 

we have some legislation we are reintroducing to try to have a 

transitional care payment in the light of the larger context. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

Mr. Buchanan is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing today. 

I represent about 200,000 seniors that rely on Medicare in my 

district. I want to ensure that seniors have access to quality health 

care, as all of us do. Millions of Americans are struggling, especially seniors living in our area on fixed incomes. I understand the 

average income of a Medigap policyholder is less than $30,000 a 

year. In Florida, we have over 650,000 seniors on Medicare that 

have a Medigap policy. Medigap is critical to allowing these seniors 

who live on fixed income to budget the needed care and expect the 

unexpected medical expenses. Should we be concerned that restricting supplemental coverage could result in skipped doctor visits that 

are actually needed and could lead to more costly care in the long 

term? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, Mr. Buchanan, again, I want to emphasize that our approach is not to restrict access to supplemental coverage or deny people the option of buying supplemental coverage. 

We do think that they should face at least a portion of the cost 

implications of that choice. When you pay a supplemental insurance premium, you are only paying a small fraction of the added 

cost to the Medicare program, and so we think that people need to 

see a bit of that added cost that the taxpayers incur as a result of 

their decision, but for sure, they ought to retain the choice. 

In our chapter on benefit redesign, we present an analysis that 

shows that if the benefit package is redesigned along the lines that 

we describe, catastrophic coverage and a restructuring of the 

copays and some people react to that by reducing their supplemental coverage, in fact, they may be better off financially. And 

that is because right now a lot of people are buying supplemental 

coverage out of fear and uncertainty because of the lack of catastrophic coverage and the confusing benefit design. But the amount 

they pay in for supplemental coverage, they don’t get out, again, 

in benefits. They are overpaying for it. And so they could actually 

be better off if we have a redesigned benefit package and less comprehensive supplemental coverage. 


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Mr. BUCHANAN. I just want to ask you, because we have got 

limited time, a second question. In your report, the commission 

highlights some serious concerns with the demonstration program 

that CMS is currently implementing for dual-eligible individuals. I 

am concerned or I get these concerns expressed to me that CMS 

is implementing this program with nothing definitive in terms of 

measurement or some way to compare the outcomes. Should CMS 

be using some sort of measuring stick to gauge success while helping the people that are at risk in terms of that population? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We think that having a strong measurement 

system is a very important part of moving toward a new approach 

for dually eligible beneficiaries. Many of these beneficiaries, as you 

well know, are really quite vulnerable patients that have either 

cognitive or physical limitations and have really unique sort of clinical and social service needs, and so we think an important part 

of this movement needs to be a robust measurement system. 

We have limited measures currently for the so-called SNPs, the 

special needs plans, that serve dually eligible beneficiaries under 

Medicare Advantage. That measurement system is not robust 

enough. 

The good news is that CMS has engaged the National Quality 

Forum, which is sort of the national arbiter of quality measurement, to enhance the measurements for the dually eligible population. That is encouraging, but there is more work that needs to 

be done. 

Mr. BUCHANAN. Why haven’t they taken a more aggressive approach in terms of actually measuring it because I don’t know how 

you manage it if you can’t measure it, you know, from that standpoint. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, I think that they are taking an approach to push the measurement ahead. It is just the synchronizing of that with the demonstrations that has us worried. We are 

worried about really large-scale demonstrations that move too 

quickly relative to our ability to assess quality in the plans. 

Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

Mr. McDermott is recognized. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Hackbarth, for coming here and talking to us. 

You talked briefly about something I want to expand on, primary 

care. In about 2 weeks, sometime in the next 2 weeks, the Supreme 

Court is going to decide whether we have a national plan under the 

Affordable Care Act. One of the needs is going to be for primary 

care physicians. Everybody knows that we need half the doctors to 

be in primary care, but we have only got about a third. Why is 

that? Because of the compensation. And you had asked the RUC, 

the Relative Value Update Committee, to do a comprehensive review of the E&M codes. They talked you out of it and came back 

with a new set of codes for care transition and for chronic care 

management, and I would like to hear your understanding because 

clearly, the RUC is where the prices are decided; 87 percent of 

their recommendations are accepted by MedPAC, and it is domiVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:37 Oct 23, 2013 Jkt 080504 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\80504.XXX 80504

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nated by specialists. There is never—the primary care people don’t 

have a chance on that committee. 

So I would like to hear you talk about how we are ever going to 

get it balanced so that a primary care physician can make a decent 

living in some places and therefore go into that part of medicine, 

or are we just going to have this same mess until we have real 

breakdown in the system? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. I don’t remember ever being talked out of 

anything by the RUC, just for the record. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Maybe that is my interpretation. They didn’t 

give you what you asked for. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yeah, right. Let me make a few points. 

One, we have pushed aggressively for a number of years for 

there to be a significant effort to across the board improve the relative values in the Medicare payment system. What we have said 

is that CMS is overly dependent on the RUC for determining relative values, and we have urged them for a period of years now to 

develop alternative sources of information and expertise that can— 

not necessarily replace the RUC but at least complement what they 

get from the RUC. We are particularly concerned that estimates of 

time, the time involved in each of the 7,000 codes are off, and 

maybe not by a little, but off substantially. Time is the single— 

time estimate is the single most important factor in determining 

the relative value. So if the time estimates are off, that is a big, 

big deal. 

The RUC process for estimating these things is they do surveys 

of physicians in various specialities, and that is the raw material, 

but often the response rate of these surveys is very limited, a small 

number of physicians enters the issue of self-interest in the responses. So we think CMS needs to develop alternative databases, 

for example, on the specific issue of time and we have made—— 

Mr. MCDERMOTT [continuing]. What prevents you—I would 

like to stop you right there because I put a bill in saying you 

should have your own analytic people doing this rather than having the RUC. What is it that prevents you from doing that? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, the question is what prevents CMS 

from doing that. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yes. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. And it sounds like we are telling them to do 

the same thing. We think they need to be less dependent on the 

RUC and have more alternative sources of information to guide 

their decisions. It sounds like we are together on that issue. 

One last point on primary care. We do think that this revaluation could help primary care, but the problems that we face in primary care are so urgent that we need to do something in addition 

to improving the relative values. Part of that is incorporated in the 

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There is a bonus for 

primary care, as you well know. We think that is a constructive 

step. But it may be that we need to do some additional stopgap 

measures, for example, payments for the care coordination in addition to looking at the relative—— 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Can I make another suggestion? That is 

make medical school free and require 4 years of primary care in repayment to the country as we do with ROTC officers? If we did 


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that, we would have people in the pipeline coming out trained to 

do primary care, and we would have them not deeply in debt. It 

seems to me that is one of the main things that we do not talk 

about when we talk about payment reform. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Mr. Gerlach is recognized. 

Mr. GERLACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Hackbarth, I am going to just raise a quick question with 

you and really rather than you replying now, maybe you might 

want to get back to me a little bit later because it deals with the 

March report, not the June report, which is the focus of today’s 

hearing, but I did want to raise this issue with you with the hope 

that you can provide us with your insight and thoughts on it. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Sure. 

Mr. GERLACH. I have a constituent who got 3 days of home 

health care services, and ultimately the agency billed for that service for a total of $1500, ended up getting reimbursed, however, by 

CMS for $3,000, even though it was only billed at $1500 because 

of episodic care regulations as they are currently written. So we 

wrote to CMS about this issue and, about a month ago, got a response back from Lawrence Wilson, director of the Chronic Care 

Policy Group, who says basically that in your, MedPAC’s, March 

report shows that Medicare payments for home health agencies to 

freestanding home health agencies in 2010 were, on average, 19.4 

percent higher than the provider’s costs. A huge amount of reimbursement above the cost obviously. MedPAC’s estimate of Medicare margins for home health agencies in 2012 is estimated to be 

13.7 percent. As a result, we, CMS, are working diligently to implement provisions of the Affordable Care Act that would recompute 

the payment rates for home health care services to ensure they 

more accurately align with the cost of providing efficient and high 

quality services. 

Do you have any thought at the moment or, again, get back to 

me after the hearing with a more comprehensive answer as to 

where in your opinion CMS is with their examination of this issue, 

such a high reimbursement for services above the costs of the providers, and what can be done to make those reimbursements more 

accurately reflect the costs that are being charged by these agencies? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, I would like to look into the first part 

of your comment about your particular constituent question and 

the circumstances there. 

On the issue of Medicare margins for home health agencies, I can 

confirm that our analysis shows that on average, the margins are 

very, very high, well up in the teens, as the letter says, and therefore, we have recommended a series of changes in the home health 

payment system. One is to rebase the rates and lower the rates, 

but also changes to improve the case mix system so the payment 

for any given home health episode is a function not just of a base 

rate but also adjustments for the patient’s condition and the like. 

We think there are real problems in those condition-specific adjustments that need to be fixed as well. 

Mr. GERLACH. Good. If you can then get back to us on what you 

view the progress is being made at CMS to do exactly what you are 


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recommending and whether you think it is being done as expeditiously as it should be, given the high rates of return that the agencies are getting in their reimbursements, we would appreciate that 

response, and I will shoot a letter to you to that effect. If you could 

get back to us, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. And part of this issue is in CMS’s court. 

Mr. GERLACH. Right. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Part of it is in the Congress’ court in terms 

of setting the base rates. 

Mr. GERLACH. Okay. Thank you. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HERGER. Mrs. Black is recognized. 

Mrs. BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

allowing me to sit on this panel and to be able to ask questions. 

Mr. Hackbarth, I want to go back to a question that was being 

asked just a bit ago about the dual eligible and the financial alignment demonstration program. As you had already indicated that 

many of these beneficiaries are dealing with complex physical and 

also cognitive disabilities, if the State chooses to passively enroll 

these beneficiaries into these new health plans, is it possible that 

they will see their treatment plans disrupted? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. We fear that that is a possibility, and so we 

think that the demonstrations need to be designed in a way to minimize that risk, and there can be, for example, some transitional 

steps taken. So if before a State passively enrolls any beneficiary 

in a plan, there needs to be very clear communication not just with 

the beneficiary but also with the beneficiary’s providers so that 

there is an opportunity at the front end to say, no, I don’t want to 

be part of this, thank you very much. 

Mrs. BLACK. Because these are very fragile individuals for the 

most part, and a change in the doctor or a change in a hospital or 

some provider could really negatively affect them. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes, and that is part of the reason that we 

think that the communication needs to be not just to the beneficiary but also to others who may advise the beneficiary, like physicians or family members. We are talking potentially about patients with cognitive limitations that would have real difficulty understanding this. So we think real care needs to be taken before 

anybody is passively enrolled, which means enrolled without them 

making an affirmative choice. 

Then we also think, even if they elect to go along, that it may 

be appropriate to include some transitional mechanisms, like including the patient’s providers in the health plan’s network for at 

least a period of time to facilitate a smooth transition. 

Mrs. BLACK. Will there be an opportunity for them to make that 

choice, or will they just be forced to go into that program? And secondary to that, is an existing private Medicare Advantage plan able 

to compete with that transition? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Well, the opportunity for existing Medicare 

Advantage plans to compete, that will all be a function of how the 

rules are set up at the State level. These are demonstrations that 

would vary in their specifics State by State, and so, you know, it 

needs to be evaluated on that basis. 


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Mrs. BLACK. Well, I hope that it will be evaluated and allow 

people to make a choice and to have a choice because that is important that we make sure as we move forward, that we give the beneficiary and their families helping them make that choice a choice 

in who will be providing those services. 

I have one additional question. Some say that these beneficiaries 

could simply opt out, but as MedPAC has noted before, would this 

population find it challenging to navigate a process like that, an 

opt-out process—— 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes. As I said, that is a concern we have, and 

we think that the communication needs to be beyond just to the 

beneficiaries. There need to be other people brought into the loop, 

providers, family members, and there are State agencies that advise beneficiaries. There needs to be a very carefully designed communications plan to make sure that patients are not inadvertently 

coerced into arrangements that simply won’t work for them. Again, 

we are talking about very vulnerable patients in some instances. 

Mrs. BLACK. And then the last question, is there a possibility 

that the sweeping opt-out mechanism could lead this large demonstration program to resemble more of a waiver program? 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Yes, and that is one of our principal concerns. In fact, in a chapter in our June report, we talk about that. 

The State proposals, as I understand it, now envision in excess of 

3 million beneficiaries being moved into these new arrangements. 

That is, by our reckoning, not a demonstration project but a program change, and we would prefer to see a smaller number in a 

much more focused way so we don’t do inadvertent harm and so 

we have the means to carefully evaluate how well this effort has 

worked. 

Mrs. BLACK. Well, I thank you because that is just what I am 

thinking. If it is just a waive, it is a waiver program; otherwise, 

it is not a demonstration program, and we will not get good information by moving the entire group all at one time. 

Mr. HACKBARTH. Right. 

Mrs. BLACK. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Chairman HERGER. Thank you. 

I want to again thank Mr. Hackbarth for your testimony today. 

The opportunity to discuss MedPAC’s thoughtful analysis and recommendations is of great value to the subcommittee. I appreciate 

that MedPAC is taking on issues that are important to the viability 

and sustainability of the Medicare program. Considering the extent 

of the fiscal challenges facing the Medicare program as well as our 

country, it is essential that Congress consider all available options. 

Such a comprehensive review is needed to ensure beneficiaries 

have access to high quality care through a Medicare program that 

is on sound financial footing. We must change our current course. 

We look forward to continuing to work with MedPAC as we carry 

out that important work. 

As a reminder, any member wishing to submit a question for the 

record will have 14 days to do so. If any questions are submitted, 

I would ask our witness to respond in a timely manner. With that, 

the subcommittee is adjourned. 


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[Whereupon, at 11:22 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Questions for the Record follow:] 


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Integrated Health Care Coalition 


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Medicare Rights Center 


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NAIC 


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National Home Infusion Association 


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National PACE Association 


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National Rural Health Association 


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National Senior Citizens Law Center 


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