[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    PAYING FOR VALUE IN HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. WALZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WALZ. Mr. Speaker, I am proud that this House has finally showed 
the courage to tackle one of the most important issues in our country, 
the rising cost of health care. I want to recognize that this piece of 
legislation takes a huge step forward in addressing the issue of paying 
for value in our health care system.
  The current payment system rewards volume and quantity of care, 
rather than quality of care. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars 
every year on procedures that do not improve patients' health. We need 
to change the incentive system. We need doctors and hospitals to work 
together to coordinate care.
  In my district in southern Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic has created 
just such a culture, where doctors coordinate with each other and look 
for the best quality results. There are other institutions around the 
country doing the same thing. These organizations all do it a little 
differently, but the one thing they have in common is a culture of 
patient-centered care based on high quality and low cost.
  These cultures can be replicated in every hospital in the country, 
and the way we get there is by changing the incentive system. I am very 
proud that the provisions in this bill to address value and geographic 
disparity in Medicaid are there. We have a chance to reform American 
health care and provide good-quality, high-outcome health care for all 
Americans.

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