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Clinton: Abbott sets health care example
Before fundraisers for her presidential campaign, the senator checked out a records system and a labor-management partnership.
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A week after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton released her first major statement on health care as a Democratic presidential hopeful, she was in the Twin Cities to look at innovations at one hospital system and to raise money for her campaign.
The electronic medical records system and a labor-management alliance within Allina Hospitals and Clinics are "exactly what we need" to cut costs and improve care in a health care system that "simply put, is broken," Clinton said during a visit Friday afternoon at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, one of Allina's 11 hospitals.
"What you all are doing is exactly on point," the former First Lady told hospital administrators and staff members at Abbott, her only public stop on her first trip here since declaring her candidacy.
Clinton then went to two evening receptions at the Minneapolis Club in downtown Minneapolis, where tickets cost $1,000 and $2,300.
Health care is becoming a top domestic policy issue in the 2008 presidential race. Among Democratic candidates so far, Sen. Barack Obama has called for universal health coverage and former Sen. John Edwards said he would support a tax increase to accomplish that, in a country where nearly 47 million people have no health insurance.
On May 24, Clinton outlined her seven-point plan to address health costs that she said have raised average premiums by 90 percent since 2000. They include universal coverage with an emphasis on preventive care, the formation of large insurance pools for individuals and small businesses, and expanding the use of electronic records, which she said could save almost $80 billion a year.
Her ideas are no more welcome than they were 14 years ago by critics of the overhaul she proposed then, at the beginning of her husband's presidency, that went nowhere.
"I think most people don't want to see the government-run health care that she's still pushing," said Mark Drake, spokesman for the Republican Party of Minnesota. "The question is, how is she going to pay for her plan?"
Partnership praised
During Friday's visit, Clinton also praised an alliance between Allina and the Service Employees International Union there, whose members work in service jobs such as housekeeping, laundry, food service and transportation.
Formed early last year, the alliance is one of only two like it in the country, intended to foster cooperation instead of confrontation in the search for continual improvement in patient care, worker safety and treatment costs. It is already credited with helping to cut active union grievances from 19 to one and to improve patient satisfaction with the food in one hospital by 15 percent, hospital and union officers have said.
"I'm committed to three big goals -- reducing costs, improving care and insurance for everyone," Clinton told the hospital staff and administrators. "I'm convinced we can do this, [and] it requires the kind of partnership you've put in place here."
H.J. Cummins • 612-673-4671 • hcummins@startribune.com
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