Political Quotes

“I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing earlier this week. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Health Information Exchange: A Path Towards Improving the Quality and Value of Health Care for Patients We're here today to outline our plans to conduct an intensive review of electronic health records. There is a great deal of bipartisan interest in this on the committee. My staff and Sen. Murray's staff have been meeting with experts every day, the staff of each of our committee members have been meeting once a week, and Sen Murray and myself have been speaking with the administration regularly as well. The administration understands our level of interest and is working with us to improve these records. Here's what we're talking about: The Meaningful Use Program began in 2009 to encourage the 491,000 physicians who serve Medicaid and Medicare patients and almost 4,500 hospitals who serve those patients to begin to adopt and use electronic health records systems. Of those 491,000 physicians, 456,000 have received some sort of Medicare or Medicaid incentive payment from the Meaningful Use Program. All hospitals and most physicians that tried were able to meet the first stage requirements. For those who met the requirements, the government paid incentive payments in the form of higher Medicare reimbursements.…”