The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a powerful tool for improving quality and reducing costs: the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Congress created the Innovation Center in 2010 to test new approaches or “models” to pay for and deliver health care. The complexity of many of the current models might have encouraged consolidation within the health care system, leading to fewer choices for patients. The Trump administration is analyzing all Innovation Center models to determine what is working and should continue, and what isn’t and shouldn’t. Strengthening Medicare and Medicaid will require health care providers to compete for patients in a free and dynamic market, creating incentives to increase quality and reduce costs.

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