[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 49 (Monday, December 13, 1999)]
[Pages 2524-2526]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999

December 6, 1999

    Today I am pleased to sign S. 580, the ``Healthcare Research and 
Quality Act of 1999,'' which authorizes appropriations for the Agency 
for Health Care Policy and Research (and renames it the ``Agency for 
Healthcare Research and Quality'') and authorizes a new grant program to 
support children's hospitals with graduate medical education programs.
    This legislation combines two important health care priorities of my 
Administration: first, ensuring that our Nation's children, especially 
those who suffer from complex or unusual diseases, continue to receive 
the highest quality care that our health care system can provide; and 
second, developing the scientific evidence that we need to improve

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the quality and safety of our health care system.
    The Act takes an important first step to ensure the delivery of high 
quality health care for America's children by investing Federal funds in 
graduate medical education at freestanding children's hospitals. This 
long overdue initiative was included in my Administration's FY 2000 
budget and was strongly advocated by the First Lady. Her leadership in 
this area is longstanding, and it is with great pride that I sign this 
groundbreaking legislation.
    In an increasingly competitive health care market dominated by 
managed care, teaching hospitals struggle to cover the significant costs 
associated with training and research as private reimbursements decline. 
Millions of American children each year are treated by physicians 
affiliated with or trained in one of 60 independent children's hospitals 
across the country. While other teaching hospitals receive support for 
these costs through Medicare, children's hospitals receive virtually no 
Federal funds, even though they train nearly 30 percent of the Nation's 
pediatricians and nearly 50 percent of all pediatric specialists. This 
inequity exacerbates an already difficult financial situation for 
children's hospitals, which often serve the poorest, sickest, and most 
vulnerable children. In many cases, they provide the regional safety net 
for children, regardless of medical or economic need, and they are the 
major centers of research on children's health problems.
    This Act creates a new grant program to provide much-needed support 
for the training of these critical health providers. I am pleased that 
the Consolidated Appropriations Act that I recently approved included my 
full $40 million request to get this program started.
    The Act also authorizes appropriations through 2005 for the Agency 
for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and represents the 
culmination of a genuine bipartisan effort to make better information 
available to health care decisionmakers to use to improve health care. 
AHRQ will help close the numerous data gaps throughout the health care 
delivery system. It will also serve as a bridge between the best science 
in the world with the best health care in the world.
    The AHRQ will build on the foundation of strong scientific 
approaches to health services research established by the Agency for 
Health Care Policy and Research. This legislation was passed on an 
overwhelmingly bipartisan basis by the Congress, which is a tribute to 
the many members of both chambers, from both sides of the aisle. I 
particularly want to single out Senators Frist and Kennedy and 
Congressmen Bliley, Dingell, Bilirakis, and Brown, who have championed 
quality information for quality health care, for their commitment to 
this important reauthorization.
    The AHRQ is now designated the lead Federal agency in health care 
quality to help meet the needs of decisionmakers and work in partnership 
with the private sector. AHRQ will develop a national report on quality, 
stimulate evidence-based medicine, sponsor primary care research, help 
eliminate medical errors, and apply the power of information systems and 
technology in a manner that assures adequate patient privacy 
protections. AHRQ will also be a principal source of research that will 
guide health plans, purchasers, health care systems, clinicians, and 
policymakers as they seek to improve access to health care and make it 
affordable for all Americans.
    I am delighted to sign S. 580, which will support research needed to 
improve health care and help train new pediatricians and pediatric sub-
specialists who will be able to put this knowledge to work for America's 
children.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
December 6, 1999.

Note: S. 580, approved December 6, was assigned Public Law No. 106-129.

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