FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 04, 2008

Leading Minnesota Healthcare Organization Joins National Health Care Reform Partnership

March 4, 2008      
Contact:  Kate Navarro-McKay, PQC 646-246-5906
Joe Dangor HealthPartners 952-883-5223

WASHINGTON, DC – The Partnership for Quality Care, a unique coalition that brings together some of the nation's largest and most innovative health care providers and labor unions to press for the reform and improvement of our health care system, announced today that HealthPartners of Minnesota will join its efforts to secure guaranteed, high quality, affordable health care for every American.   

The Partnership for Quality Care (PQC) 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 50 million patients each year.

"As the nation's largest consumer-governed, non-profit health care organization, we share the commitment of our PQC partners in building a health care system that provides quality care, is affordable, accessible and improves the health of Americans." said Mary Brainerd, President & Chief Executive Officer of HealthPartners.  

"From CEOs to nurses to certified nurse assistants, we know from personal experience the terrible cost of failing to provide better access to quality care, and what reforms are most urgently needed," said  Dennis Rivera, PQC Chairman and Chair of SEIU Healthcare. "With this new Partnership we are putting up resources to work together to secure universal health care coverage.  This is a truly unprecedented national effort, and it is greatly strengthened by the participation of HealthPartners, an organization whose public policy platform is closely aligned with PQC's principles to reform American health care."

"I could not be more proud to have HealthPartners, an organization with a rich tradition of healthcare quality, innovation and consumer governance, participating in the PQC " said George C. Halvorson, PQC Secretary and Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Kaiser Permanente. "We are the people who will build a 21st Century health care system, finding and implementing innovative ways to serve patients and promote policies that improve quality, expand access, and contain costs without compromising care."

"We're excited to have HealthPartners add their voice to the chorus for quality, affordable health care for every man, woman, and child in America," said Julie Schnell, President of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. "They bring a needed voice to the debate."

The Partnership for Quality Care's efforts to secure health insurance coverage for uninsured low-income children have been featured on CNN and in newspapers nationwide. With an initial budget of at least $5 million, as this unprecedented healthcare partnership continues to grow, it will educate communities and elected representatives across the country on the importance or reform through events, direct mail, grassroots and online organizing, media, and more.

The PQC's 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.

The Partnership for Quality Care was launched in May, 2007.  The PQC's members are: 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East • Catholic Healthcare West • Daughters of Charity Health System • Greater New York Hospital Association • Group Health Cooperative • Jackson Health System • Kaiser Permanente • Partners HealthCare (Brigham & Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital) • SEIU Healthcare 1199NW • SEIU Healthcare Minnesota • SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West • SEIU Healthcare Committee of Interns & Residents • SEIU Local 1991• Service Employees International Union

Founded in 1957, the HealthPartners (www.healthpartners.com) family of health care companies serve more than one million medical and dental health plan members nationwide and is the largest consumer-governed, nonprofit health care organization in the nation, providing care, coverage, research and education to improve the health of members, patients and the community. For the third year in a row, HealthPartners is rated one of the best plans in the nation by U.S. News and World Report/ The National Committee for Quality Assurance.