Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, 14 months ago this House passed in the stimulus bill a measure that contained $20 billion for information technology relating to health care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published a rule on January 13 of this year to determine qualifications of what determined a so-called meaningful user and who will be able to receive this funding. Mr. Speaker, this morning I spoke to the American Hospital Association. Our Nation's hospitals are almost unanimous in their dissatisfaction with the rules coming out of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. These rules are misguided, rigid, and in fact unattainable. In fact, a bipartisan group of 248 members of this House of Representatives agreed. Further, instead of incentivizing compliance, these rules punish noncompliance. This undoubtedly gives us an idea of what we can expect with the rulemaking and regulation that will occur at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Health and Human Services, Office of Personnel Management, and, for crying out loud, the Internal Revenue Service as they go through this same process addressing the new health care reform law. This will go on for years, and in fact decades, perhaps even generations. Doctors, hospitals, information technology manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, and all Americans need to stay alert and pay attention to what's coming out of the agencies here in Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of us to stay involved and active.…”