Excerpt from The Hill
Written by Marc Samuels
It has been widely reported that President-elect Trump’s nomination of Rep. Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon, to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Seema Verma to be the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has drawn many cheers from Republicans eager to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
To be sure, replacing Obamacare would be a huge victory for conservatives, and Price has proved he is more than qualified to take on the task by authoring a comprehensive replacement plan in every Congress since 2011.
But all of the focus on Obamacare overlooks the real reason Price’s nomination is just what the doctor ordered: He will take over the reins of HHS just in time to begin implementation of the biggest change to Medicare physician payment in generations, the “Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act” (MACRA).