House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, addressing a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Health Summit in San Francisco this morning about Obama’s health reform, stressed elements of the three House bills that might seem palatable to her audience: cost containment, IT design and integration with existing systems to create universal access to care. But she did not back down on a few other consistent statements such as the assertion that no bill will pass the House without a public option.
“We will invest in medical research and technology,” Pelosi said; and will incorporate elements such as electronic medical records for individuals to speed care.
It was clear there were mixed levels of support for reform in her audience. California Pacific Medical Center CEO Warren Browner MD, MPH drew muted chuckles and no boos with a throw-away comment that President Obama had “spent more time on choosing a dog” than on crafting a health policy. CPMC, a Sutter Health Affiliate, was presenting sponsor of the event.
Speaker Pelosi, though, hammered away at the primary intentions of reform: “improve quality, expand coverage and contain costs” while providing universal access to quality healthcare. “We will,” she said, focus on “quality, not quantity; wellness of the person not utilization (of facilities and technologies); value, not volume; and a commitment to prevention and wellness.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom addressed the gathering earlier, touting the success of his “Healthy San Francisco” universal coverage program now in its second year. An independent Kaiser Family Foundation poll recently showed Healthy San Francisco to have a 94% approval record, prompting City/County Department of Public Health Director Mitch Katz, MD to ask when any program of any sort had ever gotten a 94% approval record. Citing the need for protection of such elements as in-home services in an aging population, Newsom said the program’s success was attributable largely to partnerships with local hospitals, clinics and medical facilities (CPMC is one), specifically singling out Kaiser Permanente, which signed on in July. The program does not offer a national model, Newsom said, but has many elements a national plan could adopt. Healthy San Francisco includes things that might not get into a national bill but are favorites with wellness proponents: community organic gardens, city-funded salad bars in schools and an ad featuring a soda-equipped young boy admitting to “a drinking problem.” Another key to the program’s success, Newsom said, is its ultra-simple one-page enrollment form.
Pelosi insisted that the final bill will include “insurance reform: no refusal based on pre-existing conditions, no co-pay for prevention, no cut-offs.”
And the major themes were reiterated: “As President Obama has said, universal healthcare is a moral imperative,” she said; “we are the only country in the developed world without it. I say to those who would have us do a little bit, and another little bit, and another little bit — Lyndon Johnson settled for half a loaf; this is the other half of the loaf.”
Hey Fran
Great piece. My only issue is that when Dr. Browner made that remark about President Obama taking more time to choose a dog than on health care reform he was not expressing his own opinion, he was quoting a conservative commentator. Browner was trying to showing how divisive the whole health care reform debate had become and how rhetoric was taking the place of substantive discussion.
kevin
I certainly apologize to Dr. Browner. I did not hear him quoting on that — though I know it’s been said in so many words before. Several people near me reacted to the comment, not the context; but clearly the issue has become divisive.
I’m with you, leeinsfo; Kaiser’s good.
I spent more time choosing a physician and hospital than Barack Obama spent choosing a dog. That’s why I don’t go to Warren Browner OR California Pacific Medical Center.