When or where have any of the candidates mentioned CMS contracting?

[TreasonousBastard]

https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Contracting-With-CMS/ContractingGeneralInformation/index.html

One could spend days wandering through all that, but in one link I found:

Medicare Administrative Contractors
Since Medicare’s inception in 1966, private health care insurers have processed medical claims for Medicare beneficiaries. Originally these entities were known as Part A Fiscal Intermediaries (FI) and Part B carriers. In 2003 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was directed via Section 911 of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 to replace the Part A FIs and Part B carriers with A/B Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Learn more about MACs at What is a MAC. Learn more about MAC current events at What’s New.
Page last Modified: 02/05/2016 12:17 PM

What everyone should have known all along is that CMS works with (gasp*) insurance companies to settle claims, and it's not just the huge bureaucracy doing all the work.

So, the more we expand Medicare, the more we will be paying insurance companies for claims services. This is quite beneficial to the insurers, who can simply dump everything but claims departments, since they will never have to pay claims themselves.

That is not entirely accurate, but close enough to affect outcomes. And, again, most of the effort should be to reduce the astronomical cost of American health care before we talk about how to pay for it.

[Hoyt]

1. Similarly, Medicare uses private contractors to audit providers suspected of fraud and abuse, over

utilization, substandard quality, etc. States use private insurers to administer Medicaid.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. CMS covers both Medicare and Medicaid, with Medicaid being...

more involved due to state involvement.

Point is that the whole mess is so complicated and with so much duplication of effort that anything might look like an improvement.

[Hoyt]

3. Might LOOK like an improvement. Thank Dog for Medicare, but it has also made providers and suppliers

wealthy. I remember when doctors were lucky to get paid with chickens and produce. Medicare largely changed that.

You are right, it’s a complicated, tangled mess that will be difficult to change. While I support universal coverage now, it’s going to cost a lot more than people hope and want us to believe.