The only medicine our senators want their constituents to take is the hard-to-swallow metaphorical variety. Senator Mark Udall’s monthly email explains his part in the Senate health care holdup. Two things: Udall and ten fellow freshmen set a roadblock to improve the HCR bill with cost containment, approved, Udall adds proudly, by industry experts. Next, he’s crossed the aisle to join a bipartisan fiscal task force to limit congressional spending with an eye to reducing the federal deficit. That ol’ deficit doesn’t come up when the issues are war, tax cuts for the rich, or “bailouts” for banks and industry. Apparently health care is the last straw we cannot afford. That’s the: “It will be hard to swallow, but it is medicine we need to take.”

Udall’s amendment package to “improve” the health care bill is endorsed “by many of the nation’s leading business, consumer, policy, and health provider organizations, such as the Brookings Institution, AARP and Business Roundtable, a group of leading American CEOs.”

The 11 Democrat freshmen signing on are Sens. Mark Begich (AK), Michael Bennet (CO), Roland Burris (IL), Kay Hagan (NC), Ted Kaufman (DE), Paul Kirk (MA), Jeff Merkley (OR), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Mark Udall (CO), Tom Udall (NM) and Mark Warner (VA).

The bipartisan task force will include eight Democrats and eight Republicans, which I’m inclined to believe will target privatization of whatever is left of the US treasury.

I didn’t mention the third subject of Senator Udall’s email: To combat the bark beetle infestation of Colorado forests, Udall has crossed the aisle again, this time to conservative Idaho Senator Jim Risch, to introduced the National Forest Insect and Disease Emergency Act of 2009 to give the US Forestry service “additional tools and resources.” By “resources” they probably mean roads into protected roadless areas, and “tools” is not even a metaphor for saws.

For the record, here’s the gobbledegook proffered as improvements to the current health care reform proposal:

A summary of the specific amendments follows.

Working More Closely with the Private Sector on Cost Containment

These amendments transform payment systems and improving quality to require the public and private sectors to move forward together on the shared goals of cost containment, improved quality, and delivery system reform.

• CMS Innovation Center: We give the new Innovation Center explicit authority to work with private plans to align Medicare, Medicaid and private sector strategies for improving care.
• Independent Medicare Advisory Board: We broaden the scope of the new Independent Medicare Advisory Board to look at total health system spending and make nonbinding, system-wide recommendations.
• Quality and Value in Private Insurance: We require the Secretary to consult with relevant stakeholders to develop a methodology for measuring health plan value, which would include the cost, quality of care, efficiency, and actuarial value of plans. Developing the tools to assess health plan value will help consumers and employers make better apples-to-apples comparisons when they shop for health insurance and get the best value for their health care dollar.

Stepping-up the Commitment to Reduce Regulatory Barriers and Fight Fraud

These amendments require the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to aggressively pursue streamlined regulations and anti-fraud initiatives to ensure that all sectors of the health care system work together to improve value.

• Administrative Simplification: We require HHS to develop standards that will allow efficient electronic exchange and streamlining of information among patients, providers and insurers.
• Health Care Fraud Enforcement: We direct HHS to better utilize technology to prevent health care fraud.
• Eliminating Legal Barriers to Care Improvement: In tandem with this package, the freshman Senators will be requesting that the U.S. Government Accountability Office study current laws and regulations to identify barriers to implementing innovative delivery system reforms. We also will request that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission work together to provide clearer guidance to providers who wish to enter into innovative collaborative arrangements that promote patient-centered, high quality care.

Aggressively Moving Toward Delivery System Reform

These amendments allow HHS to experiment with promising new models to further lower costs, increase quality and improve patient health.

• Value-Based Purchasing: We require Medicare to implement pay-for-performance for more providers sooner, adding hospices, ambulatory surgical centers, psychiatric hospitals and others.
• Broader Payment Innovation: We allow a broader, more flexible transition to new payment models for Accountable Care Organizations (ACO).
• Medicare System Upgrades: We require HHS to modernize data systems so that valuable Medicare data can be shared in a reliable, complete, and timely manner.
• Good Quality Everywhere: We promote greater access to tele-health services, strengthen the provider workforce and the availability of high-quality hospital services to bolster health care access for Americans in underserved and rural regions.