Big changes for Medicare

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced a plan to move Medicare away from the current fee-for-service system and toward a quality-based payment system.

“By the end of 2016, 85 percent of its budgets is going to be tied to outcomes,” says Dan Gorenstein, Marketplace’s Health Desk correspondent.

Monday’s announcement by HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell could have a much bigger impact on consumer healthcare spending.

“What Medicare does really sets the table for the entire industry,” Gorenstein says. “So, oftentimes whatever the federal government does the private insurers, private industry usually follows.”