HHS Says It Will Only Spend Up To $7 Billion In Order To Learn How To Save Money On Obamacare : Personal Liberty™

HHS Says It Will Only Spend Up To $7 Billion In Order To Lean How To Save Money On Obamacare : Personal Liberty™

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking ways to cut Affordable Care Act spending while still providing quality healthcare to Americans— and a solicitation for bids on the Federal Business Opportunities website reveals that HHS is only willing to spend $7 billion to do so.

From the website:

The purpose is to develop a Research, Measurement, Assessment, Design, and Analysis (RMADA) IDIQ [Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity] to respond to expanded needs of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care ACT (ACA) and Health Care reform ACT (HCERA). The work awarded under the RMADA will involve the design, implementation and evaluation of a broad range of research and/or payment and service delivery models to test their potential for reducing expenditures for Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and uninsured beneficiaries while maintaining or improving quality of care.

Documents accompanying the solicitation inform possible contractors that the government intends to spend no more than $7 billion over the life of the contract.

The solicitation continues:

The need for analyses based on real time claims and utilization data is a unique factor that distinguishes today’s evaluation of models as opposed to prior demonstrations… Furthermore, because Innovation Center models often include collaboration among multiple payers and other entities, the current evaluation approaches will need to account for the need to gather, coordinate, and analyze private payer and other private data sources. In addition, evaluations involving other entities, such as payers, should plan to examine the role of CMS as a convener and how the model is received by both participating and non-participating affected parties.

Contractors have until January 14, 2014 to respond.