Leavitt Touts Competitive Bidding

ATLANTA — As if HME mafia ties weren’t damning
enough, providers were also battling comments made by former
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O.
Leavitt to Fox News on Monday (see article on FOXNews.com). Leavitt trotted out
the persistent notion that Medicare vastly overpays for HME and CMS
sought to solve that issue last year through competitive bidding.

“There were products that we had as much as 75 percent savings,”
Leavitt said. “The average was 29 percent.

“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,” said Leavitt, who was in office at
the time and who now runs a private law firm specializing in health
care.

Leavitt’s comments sparked an immediate response from the American Association for
Homecare, which requested an opportunity to rebut them and also
sent corrections to the program’s host Steve Doocy and
correspondent William La Jeunesse.

The association pointed out that the competitive bidding program
was delayed because it would have killed small businesses;
potential savings were paid for through the 9.5 percent cut all
providers took in 10 product categories at the beginning of this
year; and that it was misleading to compare prices for items
purchased on the Internet with those delivered, fitted, set up and
serviced by providers.

“There is a wealth of bad information that is being effectively
disseminated by people like the former HHS Secretary Michael
Leavitt, who was charged with the Round 1 of bidding implemented
last year,” Reinemer told HomeCare. “He is on the speaker
circuit, doing as many interviews as he can and using competitive
bidding as Exhibit A in why it is difficult to reform health care.
Virtually everything he says about the bidding program is either
misleading or incorrect.”

On the plus side, Michael Reinemer, vice president of
communications and policy for AAHomecare, said “the Fox News
segment has generated a lot of really thoughtful, well-articulated
responses. I hope we can keep up that momentum to members of
Congress and other news media to counter these myths.”

AAHomecare is encouraging providers to express their thoughts on
the piece by contacting Doocy at Fox News, 212/301-3033 ([email protected]) and La
Jeunesse at 310/571-2000 ([email protected]).

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