Medicare's Elderly Receiving Innovative Treatments (MERIT) Act of 1999
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Medicare's Elderly Receiving Innovative Treatments (MERIT) Act of 1999 - Amends part C (Medicare+Choice) of title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act with regard to the frail elderly, modifying: (1) payment rules (including requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop and implement a new payment system); (2) eligibility, election, and enrollment provisions (adding special rules for frail elderly Medicare+Choice beneficiaries enrolling in specialized programs for the frail elderly that establish a continuous open enrollment period for such individuals); and (3) benefits and beneficiary protections provisions (requiring the Secretary to develop and implement a program to measure the quality of care provided in specialized programs for the frail elderly). Exempts Medicare+Choice beneficiaries in a specialized program for the frail elderly from any risk adjustment system until the Secretary certifies to Congress that a comprehensive risk adjustment methodology taking certain factors into account is being fully implemented.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Health and Environment.
- Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 1998: Medicare's Elderly Receiving Innovative Treatments (MERIT) Act of 1999. 106th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/106-HR-1998/
"H.R. 1998: Medicare's Elderly Receiving Innovative Treatments (MERIT) Act of 1999." 106th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/106-HR-1998/.
H.R. 1998, 106th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/106-HR-1998/.
[H.R. 1998: Medicare's Elderly Receiving Innovative Treatments (MERIT) Act of 1999](https://openamerica.io/bill/106-HR-1998/)