Thompson, Altmire Start the Ball Rolling for Competitive Bidding Repeal

WASHINGTON — U.S. Reps. Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, a Republican,
and Jason Altmire, a Democrat, began a bipartisan push for newly
introduced H.R. 1041 yesterday.

At a press conference held in the Rayburn House Office Building
on Capitol Hill, the Pennsylvania congressmen told reporters the
budget-neutral bill would immediately repeal Medicare’s competitive bidding
program for DMEPOS.

The Fairness in Medicare Bidding Act (dubbed FIMBA), would use
$20 billion in unobligated discretionary appropriations to offset
the government’s estimate of savings from the bid program, “not
adding one dime to the deficit,” Thompson and Altmire said in a
letter to colleagues about the bill.

Under the legislation, the Office of Management and Budget would
decide where the unobligated agency funds would come from, although
the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs would be
exempt.

Both Thompson and Altmire have fought against the CMS bidding
program, which Congress delayed after only two weeks in 2008 due to
complaints from beneficiaries and providers. Since then, the
representatives said, there have been no significant improvements
to the program, which began again in nine cities on Jan. 1.

Last year, both representatives were cosponsors of H.R. 3790,
similar repeal legislation that garnered support from 259 House
members.

“Medicare beneficiaries are entitled to high-quality, low-cost
medical equipment and we intend to deliver on this promise by
reforming the current bidding program,” Thompson said. “We must
allow for a marketplace where seniors have quality and choice,
smaller providers are competing to deliver these supplies, and I
ask my colleagues to join in cosponsoring H.R. 1041.”

Under the current program, the representatives said small HME
providers would continue to be forced out of the marketplace.

“CMS’ competitive bidding program limits seniors’ ability to buy
highly specialized medical equipment from the local suppliers they
know and trust,” Altmire said. “We have introduced legislation to
repeal this misguided program at no new cost to taxpayers.”

Within days of introducing
H.R. 1041 March 11, the representatives told reporters, a
number of patient advocacy groups have announced their support,
among them the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Christopher and Dana
Reeve Foundation and the National Association for the Support of
Long Term Care.

In a statement following the press conference, American
Association for Homecare President Tyler Wilson said Thompson and
Altmire “recognize that the Medicare bidding program is a severely
flawed approach to providing care to seniors and people with
disabilities. Home-based care is already the most cost-effective
setting for post-acute care, and this bidding system is merely a
badly designed solution in search of a problem.”

Read Thompson and Altmire’s “Dear Colleague” letter about H.R. 1041.

Read the bill text for H.R. 1041.

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