Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure JPMorgan Healthcare Conference Tuesday.

“Our role with the private sector is really to collaborate and try to align goals,” Brooks-LaSure said, adding that companies like Walmart are “absolutely” reducing the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance and Affordable Care. Behavioral exchange customers play a role in drug cost.

Among Medicare beneficiaries, she said the most common complaint she hears from members is that drug prices are too high. Brooks-LaSure wants Congress to provide CMS tools to lower drug prices. The Build Back Better plan includes a provision that would allow CMS to negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers, though legislation has stalled since Senator Joe Manchin (DW.Va) said He couldn’t support it due to affordability concerns.

“If we don’t do something about drug prices, it will ultimately limit the leverage we can use to reduce costs,” Brooks-LaSure said.

Speaking of innovation, she was delighted to see that California recently launched a Nearly $6 Billion Program Helping the state’s most vulnerable Medicaid patients pay for housing, groceries, mold removal and more. Brooks-LaSure added that the initiative is a prime example of a large organization using its purchasing power to bring multiple payers together to address the social determinants of health. As CMS deepens its focus on closing health care disparities, the agency will continue to pay attention to rewarding organizations that take risks for patients with multiple vision levels, not just those that provide coverage only to healthy patients.

CMS officials have hinted that they believe certain value-based models need to be updated to include Pay equity measure.

“The innovation hub is trying to focus on those providers who are disproportionately serving underserved, the safety net providers,” Brooks-LaSure said. “As we’re adopting these innovative ways of operating, we’re going to make sure we don’t. It will leave those who really help people with comorbidities who need care.”

In employer-sponsored fields, companies are increasingly banding together to negotiate health care costs for workers, said Dr. Mark McClelland, director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. In reducing drug prices, he noted the company’s success in working directly with drug manufacturers. The partnership could help reduce the cost of hepatitis C treatment, McClelland said.

Ultimately, drugmakers must be held accountable for making sure their products are affordable, and a key way to do that is by putting them at risk to patients, he said.

“We need to figure out how to get drugmakers to invest more in these models,” he said.

Kaiser Permanente’s ability to buy at scale helps reduce drug costs, but the primary way to reduce those prices is by giving physicians immediate visibility into an individual’s drug coverage and drug costs through their electronic health record system, said Dr. Andrew Birdman, an integrated system’s Chief Medical Officer.

Birdman said the California-based nonprofit plans to build out its technology to better capture patient social data that can help address health inequities. It will then share information with employer clients to address social inequities among individuals receiving employer-sponsored health insurance, he said.

“We’re building the infrastructure ourselves, not just clinical engagement, but a network of community organizations,” Birdman said. “As our suppliers understand the challenges our members face with respect to some of these social factors, employers can take action to address it.”

The integrated system recently Morgan Health, a new business from JPMorgan Chase that aims to disrupt employer-sponsored insurance. Launched in mid-2021, the company has so far invested $50 million in primary care provider veda health and is now looking to invest in employee navigation tools, Chief Executive Dan Mendelson said. He said Morgan plans to measure cost savings in five-year increments — emphasizing that companies shouldn’t expect to lower the price of employee health care in just one year.

“There needs to be consolidation, there needs to be an accountable party that takes care of patients,” Mendelson said. “You won’t find a Kaiser model in much of the country. We’re building that capability for CMS and the private sector.”