Healthcare providers and patients alike have long struggled under our disjointed and in many ways broken healthcare system. Last night’s historic vote on healthcare reform offers tremendous new promise for New Jersey’s healthcare consumers, our physicians and hospitals, and most importantly, for New Jersey’s 1.3 million residents without health insurance. A projected 920,000 New Jerseyans could be added to the insurance rolls as a result of this landmark bill.

The nation’s hospitals committed early on to be part of this new and improved healthcare system by agreeing to more than $150 billion in funding reductions over the next decade that will help pay for other key components of reform. The impact to New Jersey hospitals will be about $5 billion in reductions over the next 10 years. We firmly believe that everyone – including insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and consumers – must have a stake in healthcare’s future. It is, quite simply, the right thing to do.