If education is the engine of our success, health care is the brake holding us back. Health costs are making us sick, and our health care system is not making us well. Skyrocketing costs threaten our family budgets and our economy. We pay 50 percent more than any other country for health care and get below average health outcomes.

Employers can no longer afford their health care promises, and employees feel trapped by benefits that they can't afford to leave behind. More and more of us are left to fend for ourselves. Up to 30 percent of health care spending has no impact on our health. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, asthma and other chronic diseases consume over two thirds of our health care spending, but we get the right care for these illnesses less than half the time. Low quality care leads to complications and higher costs. Many of these conditions could be prevented if we placed a higher priority on better personal health behaviors and building healthier environments. It makes no sense to spend billions on treatments after the fact and almost nothing to try to prevent the problems.

A world-class health system CAN be a competitive advantage. A healthy population is a requirement for a healthy economy and a vibrant community. Unhealthy kids struggle to learn. Unhealthy workers struggle to produce. On the other hand, productive employees shouldering unproductive health costs are at a competitive disadvantage. Our strengths in public health as well as health care delivery, management, and medical technology are foundations on which we should build.

• Making sure every Minnesotan has access to and uses affordable, quality health care services.
• Buying good quality care at reasonable costs for the services that matter most to health, rather than paying for higher cost services of questionable quality that do marginal good. We already have the evidence and information to be better buyers, we just don't use it.
• Cutting the cost burden of chronic disease through prevention by improving care.
• Aligning incentives for citizens, care providers, insurers and employers to get better results at a better price.

• Prevention first - through improved public health and 24-hour access to community clinics.
• Paying for health outcomes, not health care piece-work. Results!
• Buying what works best from those who do it best and at the best price - based on information and evidence - and reinvesting the savings to ensure affordability and coverage for all, better public health education and more innovation.
• Making public health services, primary care and insurance expected of and available to everyone.
• Expecting each of us to share responsibility for the cost and effectiveness of our medical spending.
• Reinforcing the link between individual decisions and the rising costs of health services and long-term care.

Click below to see our proposal for reforming the state's Health Care.

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