Three Republican Senators Question Value of $10 Billion CMS Innovation Center

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November 12, 2011 – In my book The Health Reform Maze (Greenbranch Publishing, 2011), I said this about government innovation.

Government is poor at innovation:

• It cannot manage failure.

• It seldom abandons a project.

• It is not gambling with its own money.

• Its success is measured in good intentions, not results.

• It succeeds by growing too big to fail and too influential to stop.

• It can’t go out of business, can print money to keep on going, and is propped up with taxpayer money.

Perhaps these inherent governmental weaknesses can be corrected, or at least modified. CMS, the mother of all federal agencies with the biggest budget of them all at $1 trillion per annum, is reaching out to the private sector.

CMS is initiating an Innovation Advisory Project, Beginning in December 2011, CMS will recruit 50 innovation advisors from the private sector to help define and find what innovations work.

As this recruitment process progresses, three Republican Senators – Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Mike Enze (R-Wyo), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla) are asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate to see if the $10 billion devoted to the Innovation Centers of Medicare and Medicaid, part of the Accountable Care Act, is worth it.

The Senators worry the Centers may be a federal boondoggle. They seek an accounting pf all CMS Innovation Center expenditures to test new payment and delivery models.

Tweet: Three Republican Senators – Orrin Hatch, Mike Enzi, and Tom Coburn- question the worth of the $10 billion CMS Innovation Centers.