[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17050]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                COST CONTAINMENT FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, in our health care reform, our aspiration 
ought to be to give Americans the health care that people get at the 
Mayo Clinic, and nothing less. We can do this even though this sounds 
like a high bar because at the Mayo Clinic they provide cost-effective 
health care. Medicare spends about $6,700 a year in Rochester, 
Minnesota. In other places in the country, it is over twice that. In 
one town in Texas, it is $14,000 a year.
  We need in our health care plan to provide quality medical care, 
choice of medical care, and cost-effective medical care. That's why in 
our bill we are going to need to insist on measures of peer profiling 
for physicians, critical protocols to make sure that quality happens, 
and rewards for physicians for high quality. When we do this, patients 
will have the same quality as the Mayo Clinic and the same cost as the 
Mayo Clinic to the American taxpayer. That is a good deal. We have to 
make sure that cost containment is part of our health care plan.

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