In his State of the Union address, President Obama urged Congress to continue to push forward and find a way to come together on health care reform. If we don’t act now, health care costs will continue to rise and more Americans will not have access to affordable, quality health care. The urgency for the American people is real as more baby boomers reach retirement age; reform needs to happen in 2010.
Reforming health care in America will not become easier with the passage of time. The status quo is not sustainable, and Mayo Clinic remains firmly committed to moving forward with patient-centered reform.
We at Mayo Clinic encourage all stakeholders – government officials, patients, insurers, providers and employers – to work together to pass common sense reforms that provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
In order to truly bend the skyrocketing costs of health care, we believe that the government must reform the payment system and provide insurance for all.
We believe there must be two core elements in any successful reform measure:
- Change the Medicare payment system to create incentives for doctors and hospitals to offer the highest quality care at the most reasonable cost, thus increasing the value of health care.
- Coordinate basic, private insurance offerings and provide sliding-scale subsidies to enable all Americans to purchase health insurance.
Each major stakeholder plays a role in reform and must contribute something to the process – be it a patient making a commitment to a healthier lifestyle or a physician investing in interoperable health information technology for sharing medical records. We remain hopeful that lawmakers will come together to support reform legislation aimed at achieving high-quality, affordable care for all Americans.




