During a recent meeting of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC, the panel that advises Congress on Medicare policy), proposals put forth could compromise care for millions of Medicare beneficiaries.
Of particular concern is applying "least costly alternative" or "comparative effectiveness" standards in Medicare policy, which would shove patients into "one size fits all" Medicare decisions made in Washington. Under this scenario, if federal officials at Medicare decided that one treatment (for example, a drug, device or surgery) is close enough clinically to another treatment, Medicare payment would be set at whichever treatment was cheapest.