Former CMS Administrator Mark McClellan provides US MMA appraisal

Mark McClellan, the former Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration who, as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), was responsible for the introduction of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit (Marketletters passim), has given an upbeat assessment of the future of innovative health care provision, including the development of new drug therapies, in a presentation to health insurers in London, UK.

Dr McClellan summarized the essential goal of citizens as "best quality care at an affordable cost." The impetus for the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, he argued, came from the realization that many of the Medicare and Medicaid services were designed for 1960s health care capabilities and a different demographic societal profile.

One of the key challenges of modern health care is to find ways of preventing or mitigating the onset of chronic conditions. This, however, requires a financing mechanism that is different from paying for continued complications, which discourages best practices among physicians, according to the former CMS Administrator.