Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, while my colleague is on the floor, I want to commend Senator Cantwell for her superb work on this legislation. Senator Cantwell has really been the leader in the effort to get the Secretary of Health and Human Services to look at alternative payment models in the Medicare Advantage Program. This is a hugely important program for us in the Northwest. It is also, by the way, very extensively used in Minnesota. I think my colleague from Washington State has done particularly important work in also looking, as part of this discussion, at what is called a value-based modifier.

Mr. President, I have some thank-yous to make--and I will be very brief--but before I do that, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with Senator Cantwell.

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Mr. WYDEN. H.R. 2 moves the physician payment system from one that rewards volume to one that rewards value. I look forward to extending value-based policies across the entire spectrum of Medicare. I agree, it is important to reward all providers and all Medicare Advantage plans that provide high value and high quality care. I look forward to working with the Senator and the entire Finance Committee to achieve these goals.

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Mr. WYDEN. Just a couple of quick thank-yous, and then I want to let my colleague wrap up for our side.

It is pretty clear, Mr. President, that a bill of this magnitude does not happen by osmosis. It comes about because of scores of hearings, roundtables, briefings, and countless hours of staff time. I am just going to take a couple of minutes to thank some people who did so much to make this possible.

First, I thank Leader Reid and his very capable health care staffer Kate Leone. When there is a big health care issue before the Senate, Kate Leone is the person you want to have in the trenches with you. I want to thank Senator Reid, because during the short tenure in which I was the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, we started working closely together on reforming the Medicare reimbursement system, and his leadership is very much a part of the success of this evening.

Second, there was staff at the various congressional support agencies who provided technical assistance. We are talking about CMS, the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, legislative counsel, and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. I would also like to note the efforts made by Ira Burney, Anne Scott, and Jennifer Druckman in the CMS Office of Legislation and Tom Bradley and Lori Housman of the Congressional Budget Office.

I would also like to recognize Chairman Hatch and his very capable and dedicated staff. They worked many, many months on this issue, constantly reaching across the aisle--and former Hatch staffer, Dan Todd, current Hatch staffers Kristin Welsh and Erin Dempsey particularly deserve recognition.

I want to close by thanking my staff, our finance staff and personal staff, affectionately known as the health team. Some, such as Karen Fisher, Matt Kazan, Juan Machado, and former staffer David Schwartz have survived two Democratic chairmen and more doc fixes than they could possibly wish to remember. So this is an especially significant moment for them. Others, like Anne Dwyer, Hannah Hawkins, and Jennifer Phillips, provided invaluable insight and counsel along the way.

One last point, if I might. Having tried for years to specialize in health care, going back to the days when I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers, I thought that over the years that I picked up a little bit with respect to health care policy and came to really understand the issues--not so much, particularly when I think about the extraordinary work of two very talented individuals in our office who have really been the leaders, in my view, on this SGR reform cause. One was our health chief Liz Jurinka. She deserves special notice for her persistent leadership, creativity, and focus and, secondly, her colleague, Jocelyn Moore, whom we had the good fortune--who came to us from Senator Rockefeller. She brings great expertise and years of experience to the field. Certainly, what I have learned from them, after a career of trying to specialize in these issues, has done so much to assist the committee, assist me, and I want to express my gratitude to them.

The work of the bipartisan Finance Committee staff--through all its fits and starts--is what got us here today. I want to thank all of them, and I think it is very appropriate that my colleague from Washington State, Senator Cantwell, who has done so much good work on these issues, is going to close today.

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