Greetings Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and Rep. Ron Kind:

I thank each of you for your strong support of meaningful health care reform.

On Nov. 15, the New York Times published an article, "Re-form and medical costs," identifying financial contrasts between the House health care reform bill and a similar Senate Finance Committee health care bill.

As a constituent, I will communicate my views regarding some of the authors' health care issues. I favor most of the positions taken by the writers but want to identify issues I think particularly important and list my priorities:

nIt is of major cost-saving importance to discontinue paying doctors on a basis of fee for service and instead pay on the basis of the quality of care provided. As you know, several medical clinics in Wisconsin and Minnesota have been identified as leading examples of this trend. Persuasion and incentives should be used to make this transition commonplace.

nAs directed in the Senate bill, an independent commission should be created to evaluate contrasting programs and procedures in the medical community. Those being successful should be retained and promoted, and those failing to be effective should be discouraged.

nAn important element in providing program and procedure information to the commission and to doctors in general is the development of electronic medical records. Some funding for that conversion has been provided by the stimulus package.

nSimplified and standardized forms used by doctors in making claims to insurance companies should be required.