Chris Murphy: “Just to add to that partnership, it is also a partnership of health care professionals as well, because, to tell the…”

“Just to add to that partnership, it is also a partnership of health care professionals as well, because, to tell the truth, in a lot of States, Connecticut being one of them, the rate that we pay physicians for participating in the program is a little bit below the level of sufficiency. So there are a lot of physicians who want to do the right thing, who want to get compensated, but are okay not getting compensated at the same levels that they do by private HMOs. It really becomes in the end, it really becomes a partnership of not only the Federal Government and the State Government, but also the provider community as well who has agreed to say, listen, because we really care and we really want to take care of this constituency, we are willing to do it for a little bit less than we would do otherwise. That has been a great benefit to the Government, to be able to get away with paying a little bit less, at least in Connecticut, than private payers do. But it is a wonderful partnership of all constituency groups.”