the Commission has made positive payment updates for hospitals the last couple of years.

I think community bankers were better actors in the last decade than the nonbank lenders.

The Commission appreciates the opportunity to discuss improving care for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions.

The Commission has been concerned for many years that FFS Medicare does not incentivize or facilitate comprehensive care coordination.

The Commission's goal is a Medicare program that ensures beneficiary access to high-quality care, pays health care providers and plans fairly by rewarding efficiency and quality, and spends tax dollars responsibly.

We do think that the common assessment instrument and what goes on in the IMPACT Act... will do a lot of good.

I believe our view on telemedicine is that it can be a useful tool that providers can use in order to manage a patient's care.

The Army currently has sufficient visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D).

While it is too soon to say exactly how the newly-formed Electronic Warfare (EW) Executive Committee (ExCom) will impact our Science & Technology (S&T) programs, I would say that our EW and Cyber S&T efforts are already very well coordinated with the other Services and OSD through our involvement in the EW and Cyber Security Communities of Interest.

Clearly sequestration will impact yet again our modernization accounts.

And what we have seen is when the hospital administration makes a concrete commitment to patient safety, it is amazing what you can see.