Political Quotes

“I'm opposed to this effort to repeal a bill, a reform bill without anything to replace it at hand. It's asking Americans to jump without a parachute and without a net. And it's the wrong thing to do because we are a country that has always moved forward. I want to mention two ways this bill moves forward which we should not repeal. One is that we have finally addressed this horrific geographic disparity where physicians and hospitals get treated differently, unfairly around the country. We finally are fixing that, long, long overdue. And, second, this bill really helps us move forward to reduce waste in our medical industry. A Dartmouth study suggested as much as 30 percent of all the things we do have been wasted in health care because we haven't had the right incentives. Where I come from in Washington State, we're doing things that we need to export around the country to stop waste in medicine. At Virginia Mason they just won the national Leapfrog to the Top Award, where they've saved over $1 million a year just by bringing efficiencies in how you provide supplies. At GroupHealth, they've reduced the readmission rate by about one-third by bringing efficiencies to the system. At the Providence-Everett Hospital, I was so impressed when I met a Dr. Brevig, a cardiac physician, who brought some efficiencies in how they handle cardiac patients. So instead of moving the patient all around, they bring the physicians to the patient. Do you know what?…”