Berwick Touts Savings under NCB

WASHINGTON — AAHomecare reports that in his first
appearance at a Nov. 17 hearing on health reform before the Senate
Finance Committee, CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D., singled
out national competitive
bidding program as an example of how the federal government can
save money.

When Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, questioned him about projected
savings under the Affordable Care Act, Berwick responded that the
costs of DME had fallen 32 percent in “the trial” (Round 1) of the
bid program, “returning something like $150 million I think back to
beneficiaries in those nine trial areas.”

According to AAHomecare, “Berwick focused only on short-term
savings attributable to the bidding program and not on the sharp
reduction in patient choice and access to quality care that will
result from the misguided program and the badly designed bidding
system.”

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