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 acrosesthe nation. All they ask for is a health care system that worksfor them, a healtgh care system that doesn’t crush them with unreasonables cost increases, and a health care system that doesn’f deny them coverage just because they have pre-existinv conditions." Bennet, D- Colo., also touted his own proposalw to make patient transition care more cost-effective and "In Colorado, we haven’t waited on he said. "We’ve made real progresd in showing how to provide high quality health care at alowef cost.
" Bennet, formerly superintendent of the Denver Publi c Schools, was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Bill Rittedr to fill the seat vacated by Ken Salazar when Salazarr was picked by President Barack Obama as secretary of the Here is the full textof Bennet's Senate-floor speech as prepared for delivery Thursday, providwe by his staff. In the speech, he is addressing the presiden ofthe Senate. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the urgent need for healthcare reform. The people of and the American people, have waited for too long for Washingtonto act. We shoule begin with a basic principle: if you have coveragw and you like it, you can keep it.
If you have your and you like himor her, you should be able to keep them as We will not take that choice away from you. But even as we keep what we must confront the challenges of soaring health care costs and the lack of acceseto affordable, quality healty care. The status quo is unacceptable. Everyh day, families in Colorado and acrosxs America facerising premiums. Their plans offefr fewer benefits. They are denied coverage becauseof pre-existintg conditions. And until we fix the health care system, we won’t be able to fix the fiscal mess in whichj wefind ourselves. Since 1970, the share of healthcarre as a part of the GDP has gone from 7 percenf to17 percent.
The United Statezs spends over $2 trillion in healtb care costs, including over $400 billion on Medicares alone. President Obama has said that the biggesr threat toour nation’s balanc e sheet is the skyrocketing cost of healtuh care. And he’s right. In Colorado, we haven’t waited on Washington. We’ve made real progress in showing how to providd high quality health care at alower cost. Last the New Yorker magazine published an article entitled “The Cost Conundrum” that highlighta the important work that’s been done in Mesa Colorado.
Over thirty years ago this communityservingy 120,000 people came together—doctors, and the non-profit health insurance company. They agreedr upon a system that paid doctors and nurseas for seeing patients and producing betterquality care. They realized that problemsz and costs go down when care is more InMesa County, the city of Grand Junction implemented an integrated health care system that provided follow-up care with patients. This follow-u p care has helped lower hospital readmissions rates in Grand Junction to just3 percent.
Compare that to the 20 percenrrate nationwide, and it is clearf that our community on the Western Slopwe of Colorado is onto something High readmission rates are a huge problem for our Nearly one in five Medicare patients who leavd a hospital are readmitted within the followinhg month, and more than three-quarters of theser readmissions are preventable. Rehospitalization costs Medicareover $17 billion a year. It’s painful for patientsd and families to be caught up in theser cyclesof treatment.
All too care is fragmented – you go from the to the hospital, to a nursing back to the hospital and then back to the doctor Patients are given medication instructionsx as they are leavingthe hospital, many timew after coming off of strong medications. They don’f know whom to call, and they are not sure what to ask theif primarycare doctor. The both our Denver and Mesa Countyy health communitieshave found, is to providwe patients leaving the hospital with a “coach.” This coachh is a trained health professionalp connecting home and the This coach teaches patients how to manage theird health on their own.