Quality Health Care At A Lower Cost

Floor Speech

Quality Health Care At A Lower Cost

Mr. CASSIDY. To achieve the three goals of patient-centered health care, we have to control costs to provide access to quality care. Now there are three imperatives to achieve this. We have to decrease the amount of money the patient is paying for administrative costs, increase the transparency so the patient knows what she's paying for, and lastly, address lifestyle issues so that a healthier patient has higher quality health care at lower cost. This is transformational.

The current plan, however, the CBO says, is not transformational and in fact is based upon things which are very old: Medicaid, which is a Federal program currently bankrupting the States; and Medicare, which is bankrupting the Federal Government. This new third entitlement program builds upon those models, which is supposed to rescue the two that are currently bankrupting us. At a minimum, the solution should not cost more than the problem.

Let's address the imperatives of lowering administrative costs, increasing transparency, and addressing lifestyle issues, and develop a patient-centered health care plan, not one built upon two programs going bankrupt. On a bipartisan basis, let's achieve quality, accessible health care at an affordable cost.

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