FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 12, 2007
Partnership for Quality Care Joins Congressman Pete Stark, Leaders & Advocates
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 12, 2007
CONTACT: Kate Navarro-McKay, 646-246-5906
Partnership for Quality Care Joins Congressman Pete Stark, Leaders & Advocates
to Celebrate Mother's Day by Supporting Children's Health Insurance
Unique Labor-Management Health Partnership Pushes SCHIP Funding as Step toward Goal of Universal Healthcare in a High Quality, Affordable Healthcare System
Oakland, CA -- This Mother's Day weekend, Dr. Ruth Shaber of Kaiser Permanente, representing the Partnership for Quality Care (PQC), joined Congressman Pete Stark, Assemblymember Mary Hayashi, and other health care advocates to support full funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
The Partnership for Quality Care (PQC) is a unique new coalition bringing together health care providers and labor unions to reform and improve the American health care system. It 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.
"This Mother's Day, we want to say that fully funding SCHIP is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. As providers, 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.” said Dr. Ruth Shaber, Director of Women's Health Services in Northern California for Kaiser Permanente, which is a founding member of the PQC. "SCHIP makes it possible for children to access preventive and primary care in a timely way. This not only brings peace of mind to their mothers, it keeps kids healthy and in school, and it saves money.”
"As representatives of front-line healthcare workers, we know firsthand how important SCHIP is to millions of families,” said Sal Rosselli, President, SEIU United Healthcare Workers West and PQC member. "There are 9 million uninsured children in the United States, and every day our workers see parents who are worried they will have to choose between taking care of their sick child and paying the rent. The best gift we can give to Mothers this Mother's Day is the certainty that their children can get the healthcare they need when they need it.”
"Catholic Healthcare West believes that every person has a fundamental right to high-quality healthcare," said Lloyd Dean, CEO of Catholic Healthcare West and PQC member. "This historic partnership supports full funding of SCHIP because we believe it is a necessary first step towards meaningful reform of our healthcare system and ensuring that affordable, high quality healthcare is affordable to everyone—especially the poor and most vulnerable in our society.”
The PQC has pressed Congress to fully fund SCHIP to allow states to cut the number of uninsured children by half over the next five years. The partners are supporting events around Mother's Day to call attention to the critical need to fully fund SCHIP, a necessary first step to bring affordable and high quality health care coverage to every person in the United States.
The Partnership for Quality Care's California members—Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West, the Daughters of Charity Health System and SEIU—are also at the center of Together for Healthcare, the business, labor, provider coalition that is working closely with the Governor and legislative leaders to help achieve comprehensive healthcare reform in California this year.
About the PQC
Launched in May 2007, the Partnership for Quality Care is a unique nationwide organization, a labor-management partnership of healthcare providers and healthcare workers. It encompasses more than 1 million workers, as well as public, private, religious, teaching and nonprofit hospitals and integrated health systems caring for more than 45 million patients annually.
The 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.
With an initial budget of at least $5 million, this unprecedented healthcare partnership will educate communities and elected representatives across the country through events, direct mail, grassroots and online organizing, media, and more.
As part of this reform effort, the PQC has released its Joint Principles for a Reformed American Healthcare System. Those 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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