The Biden Administration Must Eliminate Direct Contracting Entities from Medicare Today's Announcement from CMMI Falls Far Short

The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, on today's announcement from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) on changes to the Direct Contracting Entities (DCE) experiment:

"Changing the name doesn't change the fact that the direct contracting program is backdoor privatization of Medicare. This dangerous experiment must be stopped before it further harms the health of vulnerable seniors, eats into the Medicare Trust Fund, and destroys traditional Medicare. The tweaks that CMMI announced today fall far short of that goal.

DCEs and their investors -- which include private equity firms -- are focused on generating profits. They are incentivized to deny and delay care as much as possible. There are no changes that can address that fundamental flaw at the heart of the program.

President Biden must protect Medicare beneficiaries by ending the direct contracting program immediately."