Sponsor
Tim Scott
Senator · R-SC
Senator · R-SC
The bill greatly increases transparency and analytic capability around Medicare spending—helping beneficiaries, researchers, and policymakers target reforms and spot savings—but does so at the cost of higher administrative expense and meaningful privacy and misinterpretation risks if de-identification and contextual adjustments are not carefully managed.
Medicare beneficiaries, policymakers, and state/local officials will get substantially more granular and regular spending transparency (county/MSA monthly data, MA vs Traditional comparisons, and Part A/B breakdowns), enabling targeted policy decisions, local care improvements, and clearer accountability.
Researchers, developers, and analysts can build tools and local dashboards from standardized, machine-readable files (including historical and limited projected datasets) published on a timely schedule, improving analysis and public use of Medicare spending data.
Taxpayers and policymakers can more readily identify potential cost savings and target reforms because the bill enables direct, replicable comparisons of Medicare Advantage vs. Traditional Medicare spending and disaggregates Part A vs. Part B expenditures.
Medicare beneficiaries (including people in small or vulnerable subgroups) face elevated re-identification and privacy risks if county/MSA and finely disaggregated program data are published without sufficiently robust de-identification safeguards.
CMS, Medicare trustees, and MedPAC will incur increased administrative, analytic, and data-processing workload and costs to prepare, validate, and publish the more granular and replicable datasets and reports, expenses ultimately borne by taxpayers.
Comparisons of raw expenditures risk misinterpretation or bias—particularly because the bill limits adjustment for favorable selection—so policymakers and the public may draw incorrect conclusions about provider or plan performance and enact misguided policy responses.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires CMS, MedPAC, and Medicare trustees to publish detailed county/MSA-level and beneficiary-category Medicare spending and comparative analyses beginning in 2027.
Official title: Amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish information on expenditures under the Medicare program, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 11, 2026 by Tim Scott · Last progress February 11, 2026
Requires CMS, MedPAC, and the Medicare trustees to publish much more detailed, local-level Medicare spending and enrollment data starting in 2027. The changes mandate county- and MSA-level monthly and average expenditures for Parts A and B (with historical and short-term projected series), expanded enrollment breakdowns by many beneficiary categories, a MedPAC comparative analysis of Medicare Advantage vs. traditional Medicare costs, and trustees’ reports disaggregated by three key beneficiary groups. The goal is greater transparency so researchers, policymakers, and the public can compare spending across geographic areas and specific beneficiary types; the law sets publication timing, data categories, methodology and public comment requirements, and confidentiality protections for individual data.