Findings from our CodeBlueNow! Pulse©: Iowa are now on our website.  Iowans know the system is broken but don't trust politicians to fix it.  What Iowans want is accountability, choice, and shared responsibility in the financing, management, and design of a new health care system.  Additionally, 68% want to have naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and midwives included in any basic benefit package.

Soon, we will issue a report on the differences, if any, between men and women on some of these findings.

Meanwhile, we encourage you to read the verbatim comments of what Iowans had to say:  Iowa Voices.  Truly, these citizens shared compelling stories that every American can relate.

Our Iowa findings reflect our findings from the Oregon Project as well as the "Build An American Health System" Contest in 2003.
   
Here's what we know:
Americans want everyone covered. Their basic sense of fairness dictates that everyone be covered, especially all our children and all our elders who can't help themselves.

• A basic benefit package for all Americans. 
• Naturopathic physicians, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and midwives as well as medical doctors, nurses, and physician assistants to be part of that basic benefit package.
• Choices in their health care decisions. 
• A delivery system/health plan that stresses prevention over high-tech cures.
• To know their benefits and cost options in treatment. 
• To be involved in the management of the health care system. 
• Known treatment standards that health care professionals can use. 
• Shared responsibility of employer, individual, and government in a health care system-avoiding both government-run health care and purely personal responsibility health care.

There is no consensus yet on how to manage and finance a system, and yet there isn't extreme polarization either.  Our respondents are not dead set against paying more for health care as long as there is more accountability on where the money is spent.  What this means is that we have the rare opportunity to work together to solve these problems.

Why CodeBlueNow!? 

• We have fresh ideas from our 2003 contest as a basis from which to start to explore ideas.
• We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization comprised of everyday people and some elder statesmen.  We fit the profile of an organization Iowans said they would trust.
• We seek to partner with other nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations so we can learn what their members think. 
• We actively solicit new ideas and opinions from all voices across the country that are joining in the reform discussion.

We have posted on the Vital Signs page of our website some of the first ideas on the delivery system that emerged from our contest. 

We invite you to review and critique them, add your own, start a discussion group, either online or in person, about what the goal of a delivery system should be, how it should be organized, and what constitutes a basic benefit package.

Come visualize the big picture without getting bogged down in heavy detail-and come up with some basic principles that are important to you.  Our goal is to start building consensus on core elements of an efficient, effective, fair, and safe delivery system.  Are there existing programs-such as Medicaid, Medicare, or the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan-that we can use as a baseline? 

Our goal is to have this discussion over time.  After the delivery system discussion, we will tackle how it could be organized and managed, and then lastly, how we will pay for it.

Our premise is that you cannot build a trustworthy ship unless you know it is engineered to float.