Bernie Sanders

Let me concur with Senator Leahy. We take this opportunity to wish Governor Hoff a very happy 90th birthday. Jane and I see him quite often, and we just bumped into Phil and Joan recently. We look forward to continuing that relationship…

For more than 100 years--I think many people don't know this--the Republican Party dominated Vermont politics, controlling both Houses of the legislature and the Governor's office. This is a funny story. Even in the landslide Presidential…

This issue has not gotten the attention that it deserves, and I hope that today is the beginning of an effort to focus more light on it.

We don't know the exact number, but we are talking probably about hundreds of thousands of people a year dying from preventable problems in hospitals.

We're going to do this all over the country.

But in terms of cost, if we do a major surgery, and it's not infrequent that people end up coming back into the hospital in a week because they don't take the right medications or get the right food, that's not cost-effective.

We spend $50,000 on surgery, but we don't spend $500 a day on a social worker to make sure that those things are done.

What kind of insanity is it that we go through the whole effort of somebody diagnosing a disease, here's the therapy, and, oh, it's too bad you can't afford the drugs?

If I go into a hospital, is there public information--I'm getting surgery--about the level of infection at the hospital or other preventable deaths?

Public disclosure is a critical element to preventing these events from happening

You're saying you know that there are some hospitals that have infection rates 10 times higher than other hospitals.

Is it not true that many of these settlements will not be made public, that we don't know how many types of settlements have been made because of poor practice?

We must create a more just and fair system that encourages discussions without requiring patients' rights in exchange.

Patients have been betrayed by the system in which they place their trust

See, he told you not to get started on that.

And we pay for that lack of information and knowledge later on.

You'll be sanctioned or you'll lose your accreditation.

The response from policymakers, healthcare leaders, and regulators does not come close to match the scope of this problem

How do we avoid another hearing 5 or 10 years down the road, where we say, 'oh, we're 25 years after the IOM report and we still have not made much progress?'

Patient safety is not going to improve substantially until the 'playing field' between the ill patient and the healthcare industry is leveled by an enforced bill of rights.

The United States, when we compare ourselves with other high-income countries, is right in the middle of the pack.

As many as 440,000 people a year may die from preventable medical errors in hospitals.

The third leading cause of death in this country has to do with preventable medical errors in hospitals.

And not only that, but from Massachusetts as well.

If you don't get your infection rate down, you're going to get a cut in the amount of money----