The CRE Calls Out AARP

WASHINGTON — In written comments submitted to the House
Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, AARP, long considered a
champion of senior adults, embraced Medicare’s DMEPOS competitive
bidding program as a fraud-and-abuse deterrent that would save
seniors money.

“AARP believes that competitive bidding should be used for
pricing durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and
supplies, as long as quality and access are not compromised by the
competitive bidding process,” the organization said in its comments to the subcommittee, which held a
hearing on the bid program last week.

“If the competitive bidding program achieves the goal of setting
more appropriate payment amounts for DMEPOS items, it will result
in reduced beneficiary out-of-pocket expenses as well as savings to
taxpayers and to the Medicare program.”

That prompted a response from the Center for Regulatory
Effectiveness, a Washington-based regulatory watchdog group
assisting in a
lawsuit that seeks to stay the bid program. In those comments,
the CRE said in a post on its website, “AARP demonstrated its
disregard of the views of America’s Medicare beneficiaries. AARP
embraced competitive bidding even though seniors and their families
are angry, frightened and deeply opposed to the program, which will
terminate many Medicare beneficiaries’ access to the home medical
equipment supplier of their choice.”

The organization called on AARP “to listen to voices of Medicare
beneficiaries and retract their support of competitive
bidding.”

Some of those actual beneficiary voices via the CRE’s hotline
can be heard at www.thecre.com/Forum.

In the CRE’s own written comments to the House subcommittee, the
group’s Jim Tozzi said, “We have received hundreds of calls on our
toll-free hotline from people concerned about what the Medicare
competitive bidding program would mean for health and their peace
of mind. Many of the callers expressed concern and fear that the
competitive bidding program would mean that they would lose access
to the DME care providers they know and trust.”

But Nora Super, AARP’s director of federal government relations
for health, said seniors are paying for a lack of competition.

“A lack of competition among equipment providers contributes to
higher out-of-pocket costs, premiums and overall Medicare spending
at a time when many seniors are struggling to make ends meet,” she
said. “We agree it is critical that competitive bidding not
compromise access to quality medical equipment, and we’ll continue
to work with Medicare to ensure DME competitive bidding is one of
the tools that is used to help reduce costs without reducing access
to the care and equipment seniors need.”

View more competitive bidding
stories.