Nancy L. Johnson: “I am also pleased that the President is working with us this year on another very important part of the Medicare reform…”

“I am also pleased that the President is working with us this year on another very important part of the Medicare reform bill that will be good for seniors but also good for all Americans of every age. In the Medicare reform bill we had written a provision that allowed hospitals and doctors to develop their own networks so they could compete with insurance companies. That would give us competition in the managed care market between insurance company plans where there are stockholders involved and you have to have a return on your investment and provider sponsored networks where the physicians and the hospitals actually are the means of delivering care, and therefore, hopefully, the decision about quality of care would be kept very close to the provider, to the doctor and the patient, to the hospital and the patient, to the provider and the senior citizen. And we know this will not only be good for seniors to have these provider-sponsored organizations, but they will be good for people of every age to have managed care systems in which the ownership and the responsibility is right anchored with the people who know the most about health care and the quality.”