Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA) was signed into law in 2003 and the purpose of this law is to offer subsidized prescription drug plan to poor and low income seniors. The modernization ACT conference agreement was voted 220 to 215 by the House of Representatives and 54 to 44 by the State Senate. This new law will offer the beneficiaries more access to coverage options which would offer greater benefits irrespective of their health condition or income and also allow stiff competition between the private insurance plans and Medicare (https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th¬congress/house¬bill/1). The aim of this paper is to look at how the implementation of this Modernization Act will affect hospitals, physicians as well their patients. …show more content…
B. What were the primary purpose of the new law? (i) Did the new law of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 achieve the anticipated goals? (ii) The challenges facing this new law C. Who were the people behind the agenda that made the policy change of this new law possible? (i) The controversy of the Modernization Act (ii) The Modernization Act supporters and critics. 2. The benefits of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) A. How will the seniors benefit from this Modernization Act? (i) Is the cost of Prescription Drug lower of higher? (ii) Is the basic Medicare Part D coverage plan better? (iii) Closing the Coverage Gap in Medicare Prescription Drugs (https://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11493.pdf) B. Benefits to hospitals and physicians (i) Incentives paid to physicians who participated in Medicare program (ii) Hospitals are paid for participating in Medicare EHR Incentive Programs C. Comparison of the old Medicare reform to the new Medicare Reform (i) How the original Medicare legislation and the MMA are similar? (Oberlander, J.