Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I introduce the Graduate Medical Education Reform Act of 2010 along with my colleague Senator Whitehouse. During my tenure in Congress, I have worked to ensure that medical schools and teaching hospitals have adequate resources to train the next generation of doctors. I have championed legislation to improve the financing of GME payments to teaching hospitals and annually spearhead efforts to increase grant funding for health professions programs through the appropriations process. In addition, the new health insurance reform law contains an entire title of workforce provisions, many of which I helped to write. The consistent goal of these efforts has been to support our future health care workforce and improve the care that patients receive. The GME Reform Act is an extension of those efforts. The legislation challenges recent statements by some experts that Medicare overpays teaching hospitals to train medical residents by increasing federal oversight of medical residency programs. For most teaching hospitals, which incur higher costs than other hospitals, this funding is essential to support residency programs and provide high- quality patient care. In addition, now is not the time to starve these important programs of the funding necessary to train our future health care workforce since 30 million more Americans will gain access to health insurance in 2014. First, the legislation would enhance GME payment transparency.…”