We have been asked about the financial impact of health care reform bills on Mayo Clinic. We reiterate that both the House and Senate bills include important steps toward creating a more equitable and higher value health care system, consistent with the cornerstones of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. We believe that reform provisions, which set the stage to rework the way Medicare pays for care (with the goal of transforming the current payment methods) have the potential to improve incentives for high quality doctors and hospitals and make it more possible for them to offer the highest quality care at the most reasonable cost. We have concerns about some of the across-the-board cuts in Medicare payments associated with the proposed legislation, which are a continuation of historical approaches to cutting prices rather than addressing utilization of care. However, we cannot quantify the net impact of those cuts with any level of specificity. In addition, the potential positive and negative financial impact of several reform provisions can not be quantified at this point. Expanding insurance coverage to more Americans is the right thing to do, and will also have a financial effect on providers. Doctors and hospitals will see fewer financial losses from charity care and bad debt. Yet, to the extent that this is accomplished through Medicaid expansion, it will result in more patients being cared for in a system that reimburses below cost and does not reward good care provided at a reasonable cost. We are confident that expanding insurance coverage and moving Medicare in the direction of paying for value will positively transform health care delivery in the United States. Reforming health care in America is essential. The status quo is not sustainable, and Mayo Clinic remains firmly committed to moving forward with patient-centered reform.

While the Mayo Clinic's Health Policy Center is optimistic that the pay-for-quality reforms in the bill are good step and cautiously guarded about the across-the-board cuts, the gentlewoman from Minnesota's Sixth was quite confident that Mayo would suffer thirty percent cuts in federal funding in her remarks to the audience at a campaign event for MN01 GOP congressional hopeful Allen Quist.