Mark Kennedy: “we have also added other things in the Medicare bill that we just passed to get us going in this direction. We have…”

“we have also added other things in the Medicare bill that we just passed to get us going in this direction. We have strong incentives and encouragement for health care providers to do electronic prescriptions so that we not only have quality because we cannot always read the doctor's signature, but we have the ability to have a travelocity.com approach to getting that prescription. We also have strong incentives and requirements for increased quality reporting; and what we ultimately need to get to is, like you would with any other kind of product you are buying, where you can see it, call it up on the Internet: I am looking for this type of procedure, here is the ranking of the providers in my area, here is what each of them is costing, here is what the quality ratings are on them. Because if I were to look for this podium and want to buy a podium, the market offers me an endless variety of podiums and sizes, colors, styles, shapes, materials in every single product category imaginable except where we try to keep the market out, such as in education, in transportation, frankly, and in health care. We have got to take away the barriers to providing quality, affordable services to our people, and that is exactly what we have done with the reforms that were part of the Medicare prescription drug bill. It is exactly what we are talking about in the additional reforms we are going to be passing this week in the House.”