~ Governor Pawlenty statement regarding health care reform and the report of the Health Care Transformation Task Force ~
“Health care costs are rising so fast that Minnesota families, businesses and government are straining to keep up. We need to take steps to make health care insurance more affordable and accessible.
“I sincerely appreciate the effort by the task force who prepared this report. Although I may disagree with aspects of the report, I am hopeful that significant health care reform can be achieved this year.
“Transforming our health care system will require real reform, not band-aids. The new system should be market-driven, patient-centered and it should re-establish the relationship between patients and doctors.
“We need to start paying for better health outcomes rather than just volumes of procedures. By using incentives to pay for better outcomes, we’ll be able to hold down rapidly rising costs and then redeploy the savings to reduce health care insurance premiums and provide additional access to insurance for the uninsured.”
