Health Care Reform

Floor Speech

HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (Senate - October 21, 2009)

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his comments. As he said, our health care system is on an unsustainable path. Now is the time to fix it.

Health care has not been working for families, for workers, for businesses, and for the Nation's economy. Today we are actually going to talk about some of the good news we know we can accomplish with health care reform. We are going to talk about what health care reform can do to help those families, workers, and the economy. It is our opportunity to control costs for Americans and to improve quality.

Let me be clear: We can control cost and improve quality at the same time. When we do this, we have to remember to keep patients at the center of the debate. The truth is, in so many cases the health care industry can do more for less. Usually I like to tell a story about what is going on with my constituents. It helps us keep people at the center of the debate.

Today I want to talk about some of the innovative health quality initiatives happening in New Hampshire. We all know hospital readmissions are a costly problem in the country. We have an exciting program going on in Manchester, the State's largest city, at the Elliot Senior Health Center. They recognized what was happening with readmissions. They recognized that hospital discharges can be confusing and sometimes overwhelming for seniors and that providing a little extra attention to help those seniors as they are transitioning out of the hospital can help keep them from being readmitted. They developed a program they call the TRACE Program. TRACE provides seniors with a health coach who helps patients with the tools and support to take a more active role in managing their medical care. The support those patients receive improves their understanding not only of their own health care, of the health care system in general, it helps keep them out of the hospital.

Senator Collins and I have introduced a bill that would help do this systemwide called the Medicare Transitional Care Act. It builds on successful programs such as the one at the Elliot Senior Health Center. Our legislation would improve the quality of care, reduce hospital readmissions, and lower costs. Research shows we can save $5,000 per Medicare beneficiary if we enact this kind of a program systemwide to deal with hospital readmissions. I am happy the key provisions of this idea are included in the Finance Committee bill. It will give us an idea of how this is going to work systemwide. It is one example of what we can do to improve the quality of care while we control cost.

There is another initiative we have been working on. I know all of us have been forced to wait in a crowded emergency room sometimes. Emergency room overcrowding is a problem that has become all too common. It is a symptom of what is going on in our health care system. Frequent users of health care services are a small but very costly portion of our population. They contribute to overcrowding in emergency rooms, and they raise costs for everyone. These individuals often have multiple chronic conditions. Sometimes they have mental illness. Sometimes they are faced with issues such as poverty and homelessness. They are among our most vulnerable but most frequent users of emergency rooms because they have nowhere else to go.

In one study, one individual used the emergency room 115 times in 1 year. This was in Camden, NJ. Another patient accumulated $3.5 million in hospital charges over 5 years. These are charges for which the American taxpayer paid the bill. Our health care system is not adequately dealing with frequent users of emergency rooms. The good news is, we can change this. Through increased outreach and coordination, we can reduce utilization. We can save costs. Research shows that after 2 years of participation in a program that provides this kind of coordinated care for people who use emergency rooms, usage of emergency rooms was cut by over half. This translates into significant savings for the taxpayer. It is the kind of reform we must continue to look at if we are going to change the health care system and make it work for taxpayers, for businesses, and for families.

These are only a few examples of how health reform can benefit Americans. We can improve the quality of care available to people, and we can control health care costs at the same time. I believe we can do this. Now is the time to pass meaningful health reform for the citizens of New Hampshire and for all Americans so we can achieve these changes in our system.

I now yield the floor to Senator Merkley for 6 minutes.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Hagan for yet another reason why health care reform is going to make a difference for Americans.

This morning, the freshman Senators have again talked about why we must pass health care reform. We have heard nine very important reasons why health care can make a difference for American families.

We heard from Senator Warner that health care reform is going to be critical to States as they look at the rising costs of Medicaid in their budgets and how to get those health care costs under control.

We heard from Senator Merkley why health care reform is critical to help small businesses as they are trying to cover their employees and deal with the costs as they get out of this recession.

We heard from Senator Begich about why health care reform is critical as we are looking at economic recovery. Health care costs are 18 percent of this economy, one-sixth of this economy, and we cannot allow those costs to continue to grow at this rate and expect we are going to be able to recover robustly from this recession.

We heard from you, Mr. President, about why health care reform is going to improve prevention and wellness. The goal is to make us a healthier population, and health care reform can help spur that.

We heard from Senator Bennet about why health care reform is going to help people who already have health insurance, to make that health insurance better provide for families who need it.

We heard from Senator Burris about why health care reform is going to be critical to making health insurance companies compete for business and, therefore, better accommodate the health issues families have.

We heard from Senator Udall about why health care reform is going to make a difference for rural areas, places such as the north country of New Hampshire where we have too many people who have to spend too much and go too far for their health care.

We heard from Senator Hagan about the importance of health insurance reform and health care reform to address things such as preexisting conditions.

I talked about the fact that health care reform can both lower costs and improve quality for Americans.

Those are nine critical reasons why health care reform is going to be important to help American families, American businesses, the American economy.

The time to act is now. Hopefully, we can act in a bipartisan way. But we must act to make a difference for this country and for families.

Mr. President, I yield back the remaining time in morning business. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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