RFK jr's Plan to Shake Up Medicare

The Financial Times has a new story on one of RFK, Jr.s’ plans, should he be approved as chairman of the Department of Health and Human Services. He is threatening to end Medicare and presumably also Medicaid’s use of the current medical billing code system, which goes by the acronym CPT, with a new system. The reason for proposing a change is that the AMA charges hefty licensing fees.

From the Financial Times:

Reforms to the CPT codes would also represent an existential threat to the AMA, which generates more than half of its $495mn annual revenues from its CPT work and other royalties payments. A person close to the lobbying group said reforms of Medicare’s billing system could unleash as much chaos as the hack of UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare division, which affected 100mn patients and roiled healthcare providers for months.

Mind you, RFK, Jr. isn’t wrong to see these licensing fees as a form of grifting.

And it may well be (or turn out in the end) that RFK, Jr. taking this issue to the press means he’ll seek to bargain the rates down instead.

I guess we will find out.

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It would seem to me that the codes should be held and managed by a non-profit or by the government - but of course that would not be very free market capitalistic of us.

Maybe Dr. Oz take care of that.

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I am thinking that Musk will write a new billing system that is operated by robots out in space and “charge” a nominal fee with a 3 percent kicker every year. But it will still save a dollar.

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However, Oz has expressed support for Medicare Advantage, a Medicare-approved plan run by private insurance companies.

No thank you Dr Oz. Especially in recent news of Medicare Advantage delaying or denying coverage to patients.

And that would mesh nicely with proposals to turn Medicare into “premium support”, ie a voucher to help pay for private insurance.

Steve