The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services functions as a “policy laboratory” for Medicare and Medicaid payment. In a new insight, Director of Health Care Policy Michael Baker discusses CMMI’s function, recent model announcements, and the importance of understanding CMMI’s role as the Trump Administration leverages its waiver and demonstration authority to accomplish health policy goals.

Key points:

• CMMI’s mandate is to test payment and service delivery models that reduce program expenditures while preserving or enhancing quality, and prioritizing models that improve care coordination, quality, and efficiency.
• Since its inception, CMMI has faced a range of criticism from lawmakers and industry representatives, including legislative circumvention, inefficient model design, and poor fiscal outcomes for Medicare.
• CMMI’s actions in 2025 and forthcoming priorities – including models focused on GLP-1 usage, Most-Favored-Nation drug pricing, and a range of Make America Healthy Again initiatives – further demonstrate the importance of understanding the agency’s mission and how its models work.

Read the analysis.