[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18495-18496]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          EMPOWERING PATIENTS

  (Mr. CASSIDY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Speaker, I actually applaud the goal of our 
Democratic colleagues in terms of the health bill they are putting out. 
Access, quality, and controlling costs are things that we should all 
aspire for. Absolutely.
  And I agree with parts of the legislation. Guaranteed access, for 
example, is just wonderful. But, of course our concern is that CBO 
comment that it's not going to control cost, not achieve one of these 
goals, but rather, reset it to increase it. And we know as the cost of 
health care increases, that will be one more thing that inhibits growth 
and jobs.
  So what can we do? One, we do need fundamental reform, which, as the 
CBO has pointed out, this bill does provide. We need to put the patient 
in charge of health care decisions and dollars. We need to empower 
patients to make value-conscious decisions, empower them with the 
information they need for reasonable decisions by increasing 
transparency on the pricing of health care.
  Let's empower them by incentivizing wellness programs at lower costs 
and improved lives. Let's empower them with things such as HSAs, which 
have been shown to decrease costs by 30 percent and, indeed, give 
insurance to those previously uninsured. Empowering patients is the 
only way to lower cost and increase access.

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