News Release

HHS Secretary Leavitt Establishes Commission to Work on Strengthening and Sustaining Medicaid

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today established an advisory commission that will help identify the reforms necessary to stabilize and strengthen Medicaid so it can continue to serve our most vulnerable citizens.

�For generations, Medicaid has served the health care needs of the truly needy in America, but today the program is no longer meeting its potential,� Secretary Leavitt said. �It is rigidly inflexible and inefficient, and worst of all, it is not financially sustainable. I look forward to working with this commission in an open and bipartisan manner to reform and modernize Medicaid. The time to reform Medicaid is now, and this commission will help the Administration, Congress and the states create a plan to ensure Medicaid can meet its goal of providing quality health care in a financially sustainable way.�

The Medicaid commission must submit two reports to Secretary Leavitt. The first, due Sept. 1, will outline recommendations for Medicaid to achieve $10 billion in savings during the next five years as well as ways to begin meaningful long-term enhancements that can better serve beneficiaries. The commission, for its first report, also will consider potential performance goals for Medicaid.

The second report, due Dec. 31, 2006, will provide recommendations to help ensure the long-term sustainability of Medicaid. The proposals will address key issues such as:

• How to expand coverage to more Americans while still being fiscally responsible;
• Ways to provide long-term care to those who need it;
• A review of eligibility, benefits design, and delivery; and
• Improved quality of care, choice and beneficiary satisfaction.

The second report will also consider how to address the major issues affecting Medicaid under three different scenarios: an assumption that federal and state spending continues at current paces, an assumption that Congress chooses to lower the rate of growth in the program, and an assumption that Congress may increase spending for coverage. The report will assume that the basic federal-state match for Medicaid will continue.

The Secretary will appoint up to 15 voting members to the commission, including at least three representatives of public policy organizations involved in health care policy for families, individuals with disabilities, individuals with limited incomes, and the elderly. The commission may also have, among others, former or current governors, former or current state Medicaid directors, and other individuals with expertise in health, finance or administration. In addition to the voting members, the commission will have up to 23 non-voting members including advisors with specific health care expertise or interest in Medicaid, and as many as eight policy experts designated by various Congressional leaders.

A full copy of the commission�s charter is available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/faca/mc/default.asp.