Tallahassee Sun

Recently, Congressman Neal Dunn (Florida-02) sent a letter to the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, seeking clarification on the department's decision to hold a full and open competition for the CMS Contact Center Operations (CCO) contract.

CMS provides health coverage to over 160 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The CMS Contact Center Operations contracts private companies to manage call centers that address inquiries from those enrolled in these programs. In September 2022, Maximus was awarded a nine-year contract to handle Medicare CCO operations following a three-year diligence process. However, the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that CMS would accept new proposals for this contract less than two years into the deal and will require the new contractor to utilize a labor harmony agreement.

“To recompete a contract that impacts the 75 million Americans who receive Medicare, there must be clear evidence that there will be work stoppages or a decrease in quality of service,” said Congressman Dunn. “The information I have received suggests that the agency lacks clear cause to recompete this contract. More importantly, my understanding is that CMS has given Maximus high-performance ratings for its services. I find the decision to recompete this contract to be completely inexplicable. In fact, the Biden administration is disrupting business across sectors by forcing federal contracts towards only union labor. Secretary Brooks-LaSure owes us more transparency on this decision that will impact more than 1,000 Maximus employees in my district.”

In November 2023, a CMS Contractor Performance Assessment Report found no project disruption or labor issues and stated that the “Marketplace and Medicare OEPs were overall considered a success due to the experience and quality of service provided by the contractor.”

Read the full letter to Administrator Brooks-LaSure here.