the robert wood johnson foundation has been working on this for a long time.back in january, if we can all remember back that far, when we began talking about this debate in earnest, we laid out six big areas that we thought it needed to be addressed in order to achieve what we all want, which is a healthier population and health care for everyone. first, we need to have coverage. i think we agree that having the equivalent of 24 states without having health coverage is unacceptable. it is unacceptable because if we do not cover everyone, it is hard to see how we will get to the second thing most people agree we need, which is higher quality, higher value health care. and more equity in health care. you cannot get to that without having everyone included. we have to address issues of health care spending. we are spending, as you have already mentioned, more than any other country, and yet, we don't have the highest -- [unintelligible] the next. we identified is prevention. we have had a lot of debates over the last couple of days about prevention, but most peo

betty ann bowser reports for our health unit, a partnership with the robert wood johnson foundation. >> reporter: a line of would-be spectators snaked out the hearing room door this morning as the full senate finance committee began work on its long-awaited health care reform bill. chaired by montana democrat max baucus, the panel is the last of five congressional committees to tackle legislation. for months, baucus sought support of more republicans, but that looked unlikely when he unveiled his proposal, or so- called "mark", this morning. >> the mark before us today is a balanced, common-sense plan that takes the best ideas from both sides. it's designed to get the 60 votes that it needs to pass. now, the choice is up to us. >> reporter: in their opening remarks, senators fell largely along party lines. republicans complained the bill has too many new taxes that would hurt the middle class, something president obama promised he would not allow when he ran for president. >> as our deficit continues to rise and our debt triples in the next decade, all these taxes will continue to ri

the alliance for health reform and the robert wood johnson foundatiol are the hosts of this event. itasts about an hour and 20 minutes. >> on behalf of senator rockefeller and senator collins and our board of directors i want to wcome you to this program, a look at what might be in store over the next 100 days of debate over health reform or insurance reform, i am not sure. we are pleased to say is the robert wood johnson foundation and the largest philanthropy working to improve health and health care. you will hear in a few minutes om the ceo, dr. risa lavizzo-mourey. we are right at the cusp of a period of a few mons and we are either going toet to y on a substantial initiative to reshape the american alth care system, or we won't. what ist stake is not just the two and a half trillion dollars we are going to spend this year on health care in the u.s. and more in the yea ahead of cose, but the qualityf lives, maybe even the fact of life for millions of people who lack access to affordable and quality health care and everybody knows that the idt obama will probably launch this ne

the sponsors of this report, the robert wood johnson foundation, and the centers for disease controland prevention, asked the committee to examine the evidence on childhood obesity prevention efforts by local government. with a focus on identifying promising practices and develop a set of recommended practibes for disseminating to local governments very broadly. the audience for this report include mayors, county, city, or township commissioners or other officials. local health

the last 18 months, the bipartisan policy center, through theen rossity and support of the robert wood johnsonfoundation worked on an idea. and the idea was simply can four former leaders come together and reach conclusions about this complicated lay of the land on health policy in a way that might offer some blueprint, some approach that might be helpful to congress as they deliberate. it took us 18 months, two democrats and two republicans and george, as bob said, departed a little early. but the three of us finished the work. and it was hard. i was working with two extraordinarily capable formidable former leaders who know the art of a good deal, who know the legislative process as well or better than anybody in this town and in spite of the fact that we had everything going for us and two people on the other side of the table who wanted to get to yes, it was difficult. it was challenging. and there were moments when i wasn't sure we were going to get there, but we got there. and as i think back, how was it we got there, but it still seems so difficult for others to achieve the same thing?

is also driving more expensive private insurance and your citizens are not getting the this robert wood johnsonfoundation study proves that. if we were looking at other states, all of these check marks went on the cost and utilization would be high. so what we want to do, madam president, is we know that the health care debate puts us at a crossroads. it puts us at a crossroads about what we're going to do about our current health care system. we can either fix these problems or we can exacerbate it and make it worse. and we all want to help the uninsured in america, but to add more people to this heth care system to cover more people under health care whout changing the way that we pay for medicare is going to explode the federal deficit. and so we want to make sure tt we don't exacerbate this problem. now, as senator -- the senator from minnesota said, her moment state implemented these things, so has washington state. and we know that where health care costs are managed efficiently, that we are producing grea results. but we know that the gap between these reimbursement rates in other areas