Powerful New Lobbying Group to Push for Universal Healthcare

A unique new coalition that brings together some of the nation’s largest health care providers and labor unions to press for the reform and improvement of our health care system launched today at a Capitol Hill news conference in Washington, D.C. The Partnership for Quality Care (PQC) includes public, private, religious, teaching and nonprofit hospitals and integrated health systems as well as more than a million health care workers across the country. Members of the Partnership care for more than 45 million patients each year.

“Members of this unprecedented labor/management partnership care for millions of patients each day,” said Dennis Rivera, President, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “From CEOs to nurses to certified nurse assistants, we know from personal experience the terrible cost of failing to provide quality care, and what reforms are most urgently needed. With this new Partnership, we are putting up resources to work together to secure universal health care coverage. This is truly unprecedented.”

With an initial budget of at least $5 million, PQC will work in 2007 and 2008 to educate communities and elected representatives across the country through events, direct mail, grassroots and online organizing, media, and more. Following the news conference, leaders headed to Capitol Hill to press Congress to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to allow states to cut the number of uninsured children by half over the next five years. The partners will also support a variety of events around Mother’s Day to call attention to the critical need to expand SCHIP.

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“The Partnership for Quality Care will transcend ideological lines and cross traditional geographic and political boundaries, uniting those of us who are on the front lines providing care,” said George C. Halvorson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. “We are the people who will build a 21st Century health care system, finding and implementing innovative ways to serve patients and promote policies that improve quality, expand access, and contain costs without compromising care.”

“Catholic Healthcare West believes access to healthcare is a fundamental human right,” said Lloyd Dean, Catholic Healthcare West President/CEO. “Americans today expect meaningful reform and an improved healthcare system. It will take leadership and partnerships such as this one to help us move forward. We are pleased to collaborate with members of this coalition to help achieve affordable, quality healthcare for everyone, especially the poor and most vulnerable in our society.”

PQC’s principles are to:

• Ensure universal health care coverage for all Americans;
• Improve the quality and efficiency of health care services by adopting clinical best practices and promoting organized systems of care;
• Establish a stable, equitable, broad-based, and predictable health care financing system;
• Promote affordability and address rising health care costs by advancing opportunities to achieve the greatest value for our health care dollars;
• Provide meaningful individual choice of providers and plans while promoting preventive care, protecting consumers from the costs of major illnesses, and improving the management of chronic conditions; and
• Achieve greater reliability in health care coverage, including improved portability of coverage and continuity of care.

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“The hospitals in this coalition care for millions and millions of patients and families 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Kenneth E. Raske, President, Greater New York Hospital Association. “We understand the critical importance of improving the nation’s health care system, and believe there has never been a better time for the national health care community to work together to bring about meaningful reform and real change.”

“The unprecedented national partnership being announced today can help change our country,” said Robert Issai, President and CEO, Daughters of Charity Health System. “The mission of the Daughters of Charity Health System is to provide excellent healthcare, and especially to serve and advocate for the poor. We see every day what happens when patients do not get the care they need, or they receive care late, after diseases have progressed and prevention is no longer as effective. Universal health care is critically important for the people and communities we serve. We are committed to working with our partners in this coalition to help achieve it.”

The news conference also featured Michelle Estrada, RN, who works at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena Campus in Las Vegas, Nevada. Estrada discussed her personal experiences caring for patients in a system badly in need of reform.

PQC will work in 2007 and 2008 at the federal, state and local levels to advance reliable and affordable access to health care coverage for all Americans within a reformed health care system that aggressively promotes improved quality and efficiency.