Bennet cites Colorado examples in Senate plea for health-care reform - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Coloradans, he said, "speak for countless others across the All they ask for is a health care systenm that worksfor them, a health care systemm that doesn’t crush them with unreasonabl e cost increases, and a health care system that doesn’g deny them coverage just becaused they have pre-existing conditions." D- Colo., also touted his own proposals to make patieny transition care more cost-effective and "In Colorado, we haven’t waiteds on Washington," he said. "We’ve made real progress in showinbg how to provide high quality healthn care at alower cost." formerly superintendent of the Denver Public was appointed to the Senate by Gov.
Bill Ritter to fill the seat vacatedc by Ken Salazar when Salazar was picked by President Barack Obamaq as secretary ofthe Interior. Here is the full text of Bennet'w Senate-floor speech as prepared for delivery Thursday, provide by his In the speech, he is addressing the presiden t ofthe Senate. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the urgenr need for health care The people of and theAmerican people, have waited for too long for Washingtohn to act. We should begin with a basidc principle: if you have coverage and you like it, you can keep it. If you have your and you like himor her, you shoulfd be able to keep them as well. We will not take that choic awayfrom you.
But even as we keep what works, we must confronyt the challenges of soaring health care costs and the lack of accesxsto affordable, quality health care. The statuw quo is unacceptable. Every day, families in Colorado and acrosas America facerising premiums. Their plans offer fewedr benefits. They are denied coveragw becauseof pre-existing conditions. And until we fix the health care we won’t be able to fix the fiscap mess in which we find Since 1970, the share of healthcare as a part of the GDP has gone from 7 percentf to 17 percent. The United States spends over $2 trillionh in health care costs, including over $400 billion on Medicars alone.
President Obama has said that the biggesty threat toour nation’s balance shee t is the skyrocketing cost of health And he’s right. In Colorado, we haven’ty waited on Washington. We’ve made real progress in showingy how to provide high quality health care at alowerr cost. Last week, the New Yorker magazine published an articleentitled “The Cost Conundrum” that highlightes the important work that’ds been done in Mesa County, Colorado. Over thirtuy years ago this communityserving 120,000 people came together—doctors, and the non-profit health insurancre company.
They agreed upon a system that paid doctoras and nurses for seeing patients and producing betterquality care. They realized that problema and costs go down when care ismore patient-focused. In Mesa the city of Grand Junction implemented an integratee health care system thatprovidea follow-up care with patients. This follow-up care has helped lowert hospital readmissions rates in Grand Junction to just3 percent. Compars that to the 20 percentrate nationwide, and it is cleatr that our community on the Westerb Slope of Colorado is onto something groundbreaking. High readmission rates are a huge problej forour seniors.
Nearly one in five Medicare patientw who leave a hospital are readmittes within thefollowing month, and more than three-quartersd of these readmissions are preventable. Rehospitalization costs Medicar eover $17 billion a year. It’e painful for patients and familiea to be caught up in these cyclezsof treatment. All too care is fragmented – you go from the to the hospital, to a nursing back to the hospital and then back to thedoctodr again. Patients are given medication instructions as they are leavintgthe hospital, many times after coming off of stronv medications. They don’t know whom to and they are not sure what to ask their primarycare doctor.
The solution, both our Denver and Mesa Countu health communitieshave found, is to provider patients leaving the hospital with a “coach.” This coacjh is a trained health professionao connecting home and the hospital. This coach teaches patients how to managre their health ontheir own.