By Ceci Connolly

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is hoping to get a jump on sweeping health reform legislation with a bill that would take some power out of the hands of his colleagues in Congress. Rockefeller, a health reformer from way back, has filed a bill that would empower the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (known as MedPAC) to do much more than simply advise.

The legislation would give the commission the power to set reimbursement rates for Medicare, the government health insurance program that covers 45 million seniors and disabled Americans at a cost of $484 billion.

"To truly achieve transformative health-care reform, we need to separate the special interests from the decision makers," Rockefeller told the Washington Post. "We must take Congress out of its current role. . . . It is inefficient and ineffective; we are not health-care experts, and being a deliberative body means that we cannot keep pace with the rapidly transforming health-care marketplace."

Rockefeller is hardly alone in his belief that Medicare reimbursements have strayed from evidence-based decisions. Researchers at Dartmouth University have documented extensive variations in Medicare payment rates that have no corollary to the quality of care.

Rockefeller, who serves as the chairman of the Finance Committee's subcommittee on health, suggests modeling MedPAC after the Federal Reserve Board with expanded authority to test new payment models for doctors and hospitals.

Tackling Medicare spending is important for two reasons, according to most economists: to alleviate the burden it now places on the federal budget and as a trendsetter for the rest of the medical marketplace.

By Paul Volpe  |  May 26, 2009; 6:03 AM ET
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