Four Takeaways from BPC’s Event with CMS Leadership

The Bipartisan Policy Center hosted a conversation with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) leadership on May 20, 2026, to mark the release of the agency’s updated strategic priorities and vision.

CMS oversees health coverage for more than 160 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, and the federal exchanges, and its policy decisions carry far-reaching implications for patients, providers, and taxpayers.

The heart of the event was a moderated conversation with CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deputy Administrator and Chief of Staff Stephanie Carlton, led by BPC President and CEO Margaret Spellings. The discussion focused on CMS’s new strategic priorities, built around four main pillars:

(1) Leveraging artificial intelligence and modern technology

(2) Systematically reducing fraud, waste, and abuse across payer programs

(3) Ensuring improved health outcomes for Americans

(4) Driving affordability through aligning program spending, costs, and value

Following their remarks, a bipartisan pair of former CMS administrators on BPC’s Future of Health Advisory Board, Andy Slavitt and Seema Verma, took the stage to discuss meaningful and durable reforms related to CMS’s priorities. The panel was co-moderated by Jonathan Burks, executive vice president for economic and health policy, and Lisa Harootunian, managing director at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Expert Panel, Key Takeaways:

Democratizing access to high-quality care is the defining health care challenge of this era, and the tools to meet it are increasingly within reach. Both panels pointed to advances in technology, care delivery models, and data infrastructure that make it possible to extend transformative care beyond those who can already afford it, but only if policy and payment systems evolve to support broader access. A common theme throughout both panels was the potential for AI to drive both time and cost savings, though speakers noted that realizing those savings is not a guarantee.

Stewardship of public resources and better health outcomes are complementary, not competing, goals. Panelists underscored that protecting taxpayer dollars across the roughly 160 million Americans enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and the exchanges is itself an investment in better outcomes. They agreed that rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse will strengthen both fiscal integrity and the trust beneficiaries place in the system. They also highlighted that tackling fraud, waste, and abuse is fundamentally a data problem. To be most successful with this challenge, we must integrate data across previously-siloed government data systems. Panelists also highlighted the need for fraud detection approaches that are proportionate, leveraging AI and modern technology to better target waste and discourage bad actors, while safeguarding access and maintaining the trust of legitimate providers and beneficiaries.

Chronic disease prevention and accountable care represent an opportunity to move beyond managing a strained system toward meaningfully improving health outcomes for Americans. Panelists expressed support for CMS’s commitment to move beyond its traditional mandate towards accountable care to address the underlying drivers of poor health outcomes. They pointed to a range of available levers, including CMMI models, Medicaid, obesity-focused interventions, and technology, as tools to achieve progress. Panelists also acknowledged that public health outcomes are inherently long-term and difficult to measure, highlighting the importance of strengthening existing infrastructure to ensure durable policy gains. Regulatory tools, burden reduction, quality measures, and expanding accountable care were cited as pathways that could help translate policy goals into lasting systemic impact.

The most durable health care reforms are those that resonate across stakeholder groups, including patients, caretakers, providers, and industry, and ultimately, across party lines. Panelists observed that when policymakers can identify the common ground opportunities for these groups, the resulting policies are stronger and more sustainable. Progress on the hardest health care challenges depends on sustained alignment across the stakeholders who implement the changes and live with them on a daily basis.

Watch the full event here.

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