An Open Letter from Pat Fry, President and CEO of Sutter Health

A Major Milestone in Health Care Reform

The U.S. House of Representatives took historic action yesterday in passing HR 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It represents a significant step toward providing health insurance coverage for nearly all Americans and enhancing access to care for 8 million uninsured Californians.

Sutter Health’s top priority is delivering high-quality, accessible and affordable care to the millions of patients we serve in Northern California – providing the right care, at the right time in the right place for each patient. As a not-for-profit network, we believe in health reform and actively worked with the California Hospital Association, medical trade associations and our Congressional delegation in the development of reform legislation. We believe the bill passed by the House on March 21 and the accompanying Reconciliation Act represent a major milestone in advancing access, quality and overall health care value for patients.

For the past several years across our network, we have been taking steps to enable the highest levels of quality, access and affordability for our patients. We’ve raised the bar on clinical quality throughout our system and invested billions of dollars to build and replace physician care centers and hospitals. We also have made significant progress in delivering our services more efficiently, reducing costs and slowing the rate of cost increases. Our network’s coordinated and thoughtful approach to caring for patients, along with a continuing commitment to reducing costs, are fundamental to the reform of our national health care system.

Provisions of the health care reform package will take effect over a number of years and Sutter Health will work diligently with our trade association colleagues to be engaged participants in efforts to provide the highest quality health care at an affordable price.