Aspen Health Stewardship Project Provides Means for Presidential Candidates to Reframe Health C...( Bipartisan leaders release princi...),Health

Bipartisan leaders release principles and questionnaire, discuss why access is not enough

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Shifting the focus of health care reform to the root causes of the broken system, The Aspen Institute Health Stewardship Project today released its core principles and a related questionnaire designed to better evaluate the proposed reform policies of presidential candidates and policymakers.

Speaking at the National Press Club, the project co-chairs urged candidates, policymakers and the public to use the principles and questions as a means to identify and address what truly ails the nation's health care system.

"Access is not enough," Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and project co-chair, said of the current debate. "We must have a multi-dimensional dialogue and focus on the long-term, fundamental issues that will need to be considered if we are to truly transform our health care system."

Launched this past fall, the project is an initiative by the Aspen Institute to reframe and broaden the national dialogue on health care reform leading up to the 2008 presidential election and beyond. Consistent with the institute's history and ideals, the project has convened a bipartisan group of thought leaders to inform the nation's efforts to transform health care.

Project co-chair Mark Ganz, president and CEO of Regence BlueCross BlueShield, said that charting the most effective course for health care reform requires that the United States acknowledge and address the system's cultural barriers, some of which protect the status quo at the expense of patients.

"Health care delivery must be reorganized and prioritized to suit patients, not the industry," Ganz said. "Only by shifting the culture of control underlying our health care system can we make meaningful progress toward a system that is affordable, sustainable and delivers quality health care to every Amer
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