Sen. Thom Tillis said that changes to Medicare are on the table to root out waste, fraud, and abuse as the Senate takes up President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” The Hill reported Thursday.
The North Carolina Republican said simply overhauling the “plumbing” at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) could render substantial savings in Medicare without impacting benefits, a no-no for Trump, according to the report.
Tillis, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, made the remarks one day after panel members met with Trump at the White House.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse, you’ve got upcoding,” Tillis said. “Even in the plumbing of CMS — and by that I mean, procurement, matching up contracts, duplicate payments — there are a number of things that I think that we could find that never touch a beneficiary of Medicare or Medicaid that we’re going to go after.”
He added, “In the plumbing of CMS, if you take look at contracting, contract execution, contract compliance, duplicate payments, there are a number of things that haven’t been touched by the prior administration.”
Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-N.C., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced a bipartisan bill in March, the No UPCODE Act, which would save taxpayers billions by eliminating incentives to overcharge Medicare for care.
“Bill is a physician, wants to make sure that we’re maintaining quality care and I think he’s done a very, very good job of highlighting the opportunity for hundreds of billions of dollars in savings,” Tillis said.
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