Today, SEIU is joining a diverse group of organizations at the White House, unveiling a plan to reduce the cost of health care and jumpstart the drive toward real reform. The groups AHIP, AMA, AHA, PhRMA, SEIU and AdvaMed are teaming up with the Obama administration to curb health care costs through improved efficiency and higher quality of care.
The basic premise of the plan is simple: even small changes in how we deliver health care add up when applied across the board. All told, the changes we're implementing will reduce spending growth by 1.5% for the next 10 years. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it means a saving of $2 trillion over the next 10 years; that's $2,500 in savings for a typical American family.
In addition to the savings it will generate, today's announcement is significant for several other reasons. First, it shows the broad commitment that exists for fixing health care. Never before during the 70 years that people have been talking about health care reform has there been such across-the-board support.
Perhaps more importantly, though, it shows what can be accomplished when people put aside differences and work together. In previous years, you'd be hard pressed to find such a broad group of organizations in the same room, let alone working together on a major initiative. On our own, each partner in this effort would only make a dent in the skyrocketing cost of care. Together, though, we're able to take steps that will yield significant savings for every American.
Today is a game changer in the movement for health care reform. To say that the partners in this plan are "odd bedfellows" would be an understatement. And our partnership on this plan certainly doesn't mean that we'll agree on everything moving forward, either. But we all understand that this crisis is too important not to put our differences aside and work together. There is simply no excuse for Congress not to do the same.
What we need now is a major commitment from our elected officials in Washington to stop the political posturing, start the search for common ground, and work together to draft a bill that will bring an end to the health care crisis.
