Citizens' Health Care Working Group

Health Care that Works for All Americans

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It's Up To You

What's next in the national discussion about our health care? This is your chance to be part of an important debate. Use the resources of this web site to learn about our health care system.

What happens next, depends on you.

The Working Group's Mission

• Provide for a nationwide public debate about improving the health care system to provide every American with the ability to obtain quality, affordable health care coverage.
• Develop an action plan for Congress and the President to consider as they work to make health care that works for all Americans.

As part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act Of 2003, the U.S. Congress created the Citizens' Health Care Working Group. View the law text at Public Law 108-173, Sec. 1014.

Selection of the Working Group:

• As set forth in Public Law 108-173, Sec. 1014, the 14 members of the Working Group were selected by Comptroller General of the U.S. David Walker. By law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) served as the 15th member.
• Comptroller General Walker chose the 14 members of the Working Group from among more than 530 applicants - selections were announced Feb. 28, 2005. (PDF version)
• None of the appointees are current or former elected officials or registered lobbyists. In addition, only one of the 14 appointees is from the Washington, D.C. area.
• The members represent many regions of the country and a broad range of health care perspectives, including consumers, providers, employers and workers.
• The appointments include people with personal experience or expertise in paying for benefits and issues of access to care.

The Working Group asked citizens to give their answers to four vital questions:

1. What health care benefits and services should be provided?
2. How does the American public want health care delivered?
3. How should health care coverage be financed?
4. What trade-offs are the American public willing to make in either benefits or financing to ensure access to affordable, high-quality health care coverage and services?

How did we get from here to there?

• Hold hearings to examine a list of subjects (Completed September, 2005)
• Prepare and make available to health care consumers, The Health Report to the American People. (Released October 6, 2005.)
• Hold health care community meetings throughout the United States. (Meetings began in January 2006 and ended May 2006)
• Provide interim recommendations for public comment. (Released June 2, 2006)
• Provide final recommendations to the President and the Congress (Released September 29, 2006)