Frank Pallone

If Congress fails to act in the next couple days, sequestration will result in a 2 percent cut in the Medicare funding.

I mean, I am just trying to point out that the NAIC, which represents the Nation's insurance commissioners, agrees with the current MLR calculation with respect to fraud.

Has Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana had to cut back on any of its antifraud activities as a result of the MLR requirements?

The NAIC, which is the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, they supported this compromise.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think Mr. Shimkus actually mentioned this.

Health care fraud knows no boundaries and it attacks everybody.

The more we do spend looking for fraud, the more we find, and so the return on investment has actually gone up the more we spend.

According to your own HCFAC report, fraud and abuse activities have had an eight to one return on investment over the past 3 years.

Can you tell me yes or no, though, is the funding for your program integrity work at CMS exempt from the sequester?

I think most docs know that sort of unfettered fee-for-service with no incentives for collaboration and coordination probably is not the right payment model.

We need to put pressure on the fee-for-service reimbursements.

There has been a significant movement over the past decade towards the establishment of multi-stakeholder consensus processes for health care quality and performance measurement.

Ultimately, we want to be in a place where physicians find it is in their own interest to want to move into a new organizational structure.

I think we should be doing robust experimentation now.

I support Harold's notion of having some bottom-up approaches that we would test.

How do you design a reformed Medicare payment system that works for all physicians?

It is important, therefore, to help primary care practices build some of the infrastructure that would allow them to better manage larger volumes of patients.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on what you were discussing there with primary care.

I was very encouraged by Chairman Upton's remarks yesterday, that it is his goal to put a bill on the House Floor before the August recess.

I want to commend you for holding today's hearing. As our first Health Subcommittee of the 113th Congress, I think it sends a strong message that fixing the Sustainable Growth Rate system is our top priority, and I know it is certainly my…

I have no further requests for time. At this point, I would urge the passage of the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I now yield 4 minutes to the sponsor of the legislation, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

I have no additional colleagues to speak, and I would simply urge Members to join me in supporting passage of H.R. 307 and hope that our Senate colleagues will move forward on the bill's passage so we can get the bill to the President's…

I now would like to yield 3 minutes to another sponsor of the legislation, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).