GOP probes $10B innovation center in health law

“Healthcare innovation and expenditure reduction are important objectives, but recent reports on grant making activities at CMMI reveal a lack of transparency and suggest the possible waste of taxpayer dollars,” Boustany wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

He cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which a doctor criticized CMMI after participating in its grant-review process. The doctors said he was given limited time to review several applications, panning the program as “one more pork program.”

The CMMI is part of the healthcare law’s effort to save money by changing the way healthcare services are delivered — and paid for. Its goal is to help test and evaluate programs that attempt to better coordinate healthcare services and find other efficiencies within the system.

Senate Republicans have also raised questions about the innovation center.