[1]The American Dream is too important to be addressed exclusively in a partisan political way. Hope Street Group believes that there is substantial common ground across the political spectrum if people are given a chance to work in a collaborative environment. Through this series of dinners, we demonstrate that each sector - business, government, and philanthropy - has complementary roles to play in achieving progress on the "big issues"-education, health care reform, and savings and assets policy.
How are Bi-Partisan Working Group Dinners effective?
Hope Street Group is more than a think tank. Participants are not only encouraged to invigorate the debate, but also to turn words into action. Through this forum, we build problem-solving muscle and a broad, action-oriented platform. Over the course of the dinner series, conveners strategize innovative solutions for economic opportunity policy and then are asked to help create momentum for reform by contributing to research, granting, and communications efforts.
Bi-Partisan Working Group Dinners on Health Care
Our BWG Dinner Series on health care reform, which kicked off in June 2008, brings health care experts and practitioners together with political leaders and CEOs to create a blueprint for health care reform for Congress and the next President that focuses on sustainable improvements to cost, quality, and access within the health care system. Over the next eight months, Hope Street Group's BWG will look to reform our health care system for the 21st century and will work toward building a coalition to support the following priorities for health care reform:
1. Access: Create the political context to move to universal health care coverage through an individual mandate combined with subsidies. Efforts should focus on leading a coalition of system and external supporters to reach this goal.
2. Quality: Establish an independent comparative effectiveness group/authority that systematically evaluates what treatments, technologies and services works, what does not work, and what cost/quality tradeoffs with various approaches to care.
3. Individual Responsibility: Launch a national health and wellness initiative, which would both raise awareness and educate the public about nutrition and physical fitness, but just as importantly, implement policies to support wellness.
4. Cost control: Public and private sector health care officials must reduce inefficiencies and wasteful spending. By bending the cost curve we can improve quality and increase accountability of the players in the system. Costs can be further reined in by changing health care payments to reward better quality and higher value health care by changing fee for service (FFS) reimbursement through rapid cycle experimentation and then implementation of alternatives.
5. Medical Malpractice Reform: Reform the medical malpractice system by offering physicians indemnification for those who practice evidence-based standards in return for adhering to comparative effectiveness-derived guidelines and accepting changes in reimbursement.
6. Streamlining Bureaucracy: Encourage standardized claims forms and processing, both to reduce cost and errors and to improve quality.
7. Empowering Citizens through Information: The President should support the push for transparent, free access to data, and also encourage cross-industry communication. Within the context of the third-party protocol, greater advancements should be made to overhaul systems of data collection and communication across the health care industry. Armed with information about costs and courses of treatment.
CONFIRMED MEMBERS/PARTICIPANTS
Donna Brazile – DNC Member, President, Brazile and Associates
Ray Chambers – Chairman, Amelior Foundation; Chairman, Malaria No More
Roger Ferguson – President, Swiss ReAmerica Holding Corp.
Michael Gerson – Senior Fellow Council of Foreign Relations, former White House Deputy Policy Advisor
Alan Golston – President, US Programs, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Sen. Lindsey Graham – (R, South Carolina)
Rep. Kay Granger – (R-Texas), former Mayor of Fort Worth
Ken Mehlman – former Chairman, Republican National Committee
Janet Murguia – President, National Council of La Raza
Bill Novelli – CEO, AARP
Gov. Tim Pawlenty – (R, Minnesota), Chairman of National Governors Association
John Podesta – President, Center for American Progress
Sen. Debbie Stabenow – (D-Michigan)
Andy Stern – President, Service Employees International Union
Bi-Partisan Working Group Dinners on Education
Our First BWG Dinner series on Education brought together political leaders, CEOs, and pioneers of cutting edge school reform to catalyze the kind of national and state level action that is necessary to overhaul our K-12 education system. Hope Street Group expanded on the K-12 education reform dialog by bringing it to a larger group of leaders from civil society, business, and politics during our annual Opportunity Economics Colloquium. Over two-thirds of the leaders in attendance agreed that next President should commit the following steps around education reform:
1. A high school diploma must be a genuine passport to college and/or 21st century career for everyone. The President should work with the Governor's Association to encourage all 50 states to work toward common American standards and assessments voluntarily agreed on by states based on real-world global demands and benchmarks.
2. Every parent, educator, and policymaker should know whether a student is on track or not in meeting standards. In collaboration with Congress, the President should launch federal funding for RFP's targeted to implementing state comprehensive data systems, allowing states to measure progress in student achievement in combination with absolute standards.
3. An effective teacher in every classroom and an effective principal in every school. Backed by the President and driven by Congress, a National Teaching and School Leadership Fund should be set up to support state/system level reforms, including the termination of bumping rights/seniority, linking tenure to effectiveness, and tying some compensation to student success. In addition, the Department of Education should collaborate with the President to support the establishment of U.S. Teacher and School Leadership Academies that produce outstanding teachers and principals based on a "gold standard" for teaching excellence.
4. The President should encourage families, communities, retirees, businesses, social entrepreneurs and all institutions of society to take personal responsibility for making sure that all students are succeeding in meeting the demands of the 21st century workplace by challenging the American public to take on this commitment in his inaugural address.
5. The President should support the transformation of the Department of Education into a research engine based on the National Institute of Health's model. The Department of Education should be transformed to enable states to generate and distribute research and best practices, scale what is working through R&D, and implement systems that put it all together. States would then be empowered to enact more comprehensive and integrated system of reform, and facilitate the allocation of more funding to high-poverty schools.
CONFIRMED MEMBERS/PARTICIPANTS
Donna Brazile | Founder and Managing Director, Brazile and Associates
Ray Chambers | Co-founder and Chairman, Malaria No More, U.S. Envoy for Malaria
Roger Ferguson | Chairman, Swiss Re America Holding Corporation
Michael Gerson | Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Allan Golston |President, U.S. Programs, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Senator Lindsey Graham | Republican - South Carolina
Representative Kay Granger | Republican - Texas
Ken Mehlman | Former Chair, Republican National Committee
Janet Murguia | President and CEO, National Council of La Raza
Bill Novelli | CEO, AARP
Governor Tim Pawlenty | Republican - Minnesota
John Podesta | CEO, Center for American Progress
Senator Debbie Stabenow | Democrat - Michigan
Andy Stern | President, SEIU
Todd Stottlemyer | President, National Federation of Independent Business
Education Experts Supporting BWG Dialog
Russlynn Ali | Vice President, Education Trust; Founding Director, Education Trust-West
Mike Cohen | President, Achieve
John Deasy | Superintendent of Prince George's County Public Schools
Jean Desravines | Chief Officer for Cities and Policy, New Leaders for New Schools
Marc Lampkin | Executive Director, Strong American Schools
Roy Romer | Former Governor of Colorado
Jon Schnur | CEO and Co-Founder, New Leaders for New Schools
PROGRESS UPDATES
September 23, 2008 - Second health care dinner to be held at Charlie Palmer's Steak House in Washington DC
June 17, 2008 - First health care dinner to set agenda and framework for future dinners. Agenda [2] | Leader Profiles [3] | Briefing Paper [4]
April 14, 2008 – K-12 Policy Recommendations presented to advisors of Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama as part of the Opportunity Economics Colloquium. [5]
February 25, 2008 – Hope Street Group releases the K-12 Policy Recommendations of the Bi-Partisan Working Group in "Closing our Educational Achievement Gaps: Fostering Innovation in K-12 Education." [6]
February 6, 2008 – Fourth dinner included group discussion and final review of Bi-partisan Working Group recommended K-12 policy, to be released as a Hope Street Group policy paper.
January 28, 2008 – Third dinner continued the conversation about education reform and the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.
October 15, 2007 – Second dinner held, where the discussion focused on K-12 education and the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. The dinner focused on educational reform across three areas:
• Achieving globally-competitive and consistent nationwide standards
• Radically upgrading the human capital pipeline to attract and retaining better teachers and principals
• Supportive accountability—obtaining reliable data to highlight real gaps and gains
Links: Agenda [7]| Leader Profiles [8] | Briefing Paper [9]
July 17, 2007 – First dinner was held at BLT Steaks Private Dining Room. The agenda was to collaborate on the purpose and road map for future dinners.