improving Quality and Value in the U.S.

Health Care
System
August 2009

Preamble
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a public policy advocacy organization founded by former U.S.
Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell. Its mission is to develop and promote solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics, and business leaders in the art of principled compromise.
This report is part of a series commissioned by the BPC to advance the substantive work of the
Leaders’ Project on the State of American Health Care. It is intended to explore policy trade-offs and analyze the major decisions involved in improving health care delivery, and discuss them in the broader context of health reform. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Senators
Baker, Daschle, and Dole or the BPC’s Board of Directors.
The Leaders’ Project was launched in March 2008. Co-Directed by Mark B. McClellan and Chris
Jennings, its mission is (1) to create a bipartisan plan for health reform that can be used to transform the U.S. health care system, and (2) to demonstrate that health reform is an achievable political reality. Over the course of the project, Senators Baker, Daschle, and Dole hosted public policy forums across the country, and orchestrated a targeted outreach campaign to Members of
Congress, the Administration, and key health care constituencies. In June 2009, they released the
Project’s final report entitled, Crossing Our Lines: Working Together to Reform the U.S. Health System, which includes a slate of comprehensive policy recommendations to address the delivery, cost, coverage, and financing challenges facing the nation’s health system. For more