Sharing Innovative Solutions to America's Problems

As leaders in our nation's capitol continue to talk about health care reform, in California premiums keep rising and millions remain uninsured. Health insurers in our state and across the country face scrutiny for unjustifiable premium increases. Thousands more are now likely to lose their coverage.

Cities don't need to wait for Washington to solve our problems. They can come up with creative solutions, like we've done in San Francisco when we launched the country's first universal health care program, Healthy San Francisco two years ago. Today, almost 85% of previously uninsured residents are enrolled in our public program.

Healthy San Francisco is saving lives, reducing costs and creating competition.

My office receives calls from other cities all the time asking how we created Healthy San Francisco and if a similar program would work for them. In an effort to make it easier for other cities to learn about and implement creative solutions like Healthy San Francisco, I am pleased to announce the launch of PolicySF.org, a one-stop destination for idea sharing and collaboration.

The site showcases some of San Francisco's most innovative policy efforts from Healthy San Francisco to our open data policy that powers our Open Gov efforts on DataSF.org. Our hope is that by opening up our policy to a broader community of government and civic leaders, these ideas can grow and take off in other cities.

PolicySF provides all the information needed to understand and implement similar policies in one's own community. We have loaded the site with "policy toolkits" which offer readers an overview of the policy, frequently asked questions, an explanation of the policy making process and a copy of San Francisco's legislation used to initiate the program. The toolkits provide step-by-step procedures on how to implement the policy.

Additionally, we are asking local communities to share their own good policy ideas with visitors to the site. Perhaps someone in Chicago or Tulsa has figured out a creative solution to a problem and wants to let everyone know how to replicate it.

We will be adding more toolkits to PolicySF in the weeks and months ahead. The site currently features a number of San Francisco policies, including Healthy San Francisco, our plastic bag ban, San Francisco Promise, JobsNow and our open data policy.

As, the former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil stated, "all politics is local." We are trying to help cities solve challenging problems by sharing some of the best ideas from our cities.

PolicySF is part of a larger Open Gov Initiative for the City and County of San Francisco, which focuses on open data, open participation and open source.

 

Follow Gavin Newsom on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GavinNewsom

Comments

[RichDavid]

10:43 AM on 02/25/2010

Whatever he said is alright with me! Go Gavin! Gavin for Governor!

[Carla Mays]

07:18 AM on 02/25/2010

Right on, Gavin!!! A recent MPA grad from San Francisco State University­, I am proud to see San Francisco leading the way in social innovation and re-inventi­ng government­.

[milk67]

04:26 PM on 02/24/2010

HealthySF is great, but Newsom had little to nothing to do with it. Now he tries to take credit for it.Tom Ammianno wrote and negotiated it and shepherded it to fruition Newsom opposed components of it while it was being negotiated and sat on the sidelines during the hard work it took to get it developed.
Here's the links: Credit where credit is due and no more opportunis­t politician­s claiming others work as their own.

http://dem­ocrats.ass­embly.ca.g­ov/members­/a13/News_­Room/press­/20090114A­D13PR01.as­px

http://www­.sfbg.com/­blogs/poli­tics/2009/­02/sf_heal­th_care_fo­r_the_reco­rd.html

[BaltoAman]

08:29 AM on 02/24/2010

I'm curious to just how sustainabl­e this is, considerin­g SF and most other CA cities (as well as CA itself) is neck-deep in red ink - with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Stay tuned...

[esseff44]

01:59 AM on 02/24/2010

This website does sound like a good idea. There's a long list of things that San Francisco tried out first and they were labeled as kooky. Many of them have become mainstream and adopted by cities and eventually states all over the country. I hope it includes a section for things that SF and other cities have tried that did not work and the reasons why.

[rad21]

10:59 PM on 02/23/2010

Health nsurance reform is only part of the solution - a smaller part. "Delivery of Care" is major component which needs to be addressed to bring cost down. So here is something to chew on.

In the continuum of healthcare delivery, primary care providers (PCP) are important. They influence unnecessar­y emergency room visits (accounts for 5% of healthcare costs) and management of chronic illness (accounts for 70% of healthcare costs). As at any cross-road­s of healthcare delivery, the challenge is to incentiviz­e, (with carrots and sticks), the Consumer (patient) and the Providers (doctors, hospitals, pharma and medical suppliers) to follow best-pract­ice guidelines and utilize cost-effec­tive healthcare­.

To control cost, hospitals (where most of the expensive healthcare is delivered)­, have to implement stringent Quality Improvemen­t (QI) and Monitoring programs; and have a seamless working relations with PCPs. In most hospitals, the QI program is a white-wash paper-push­ing chore of mid-level managers.

One cannot nickle and dime the low cost-cente­rs like PCPs, while the high cost-cente­rs continue to be a gusher of healthcare dollars. Here is where regional healthcare boards (devoid of political ties and staffed by bio-statis­ticians) would be of vital importance­. The board supervises the entire continuum of healthcare including insurance and the communitie­s' wellness and end-of-lif­e care programs. Currently healthcare commission­ers in most states are political appointees­; likely heavily influenced by the governor's campaign donors.

[countthevote]

10:33 PM on 02/23/2010

Look at what has worked in the past.

America had the biggest middle class when tarrifs (taxes on imported goods) protected American Jobs - and the top corporate tax rate was 90 percent in the 40's and 50's, and 70 percent in the 60's and 70's... until the Reagan Revolution­.

America was the largest exporter of finished goods, and the largest creditor nation, until the Reagan Revolution­. Then we became the largest importer of finished goods (also aided by Bill Clinton and NAFTA), and the largest debtor nation (also aided by George W. Bush).

College was nearly free in California­, before Ronald Reagan became governor, btw.

Before the Reagan Tax cuts the top 2 percent rather than paying taxes, would reinvest their money in plants and equipment and higher wages in America. That would generate tax revenue as well as jobs.

Tarrifs were also high enough so they couldn't just take their jobs to Communist China either.

Now, the top 2 percent take the money they have because of the tax cuts and buy US Treasury Bonds.
THEY BUY THE US DEBT THAT WAS CREATED WITH THE TAX CUTS.

Now we have to pay them interest on that debt too! Rather than creating jobs with those tax cuts they make us dig our grave deeper and send our jobs to communist china also.

[SFpermatourist]

09:34 PM on 02/23/2010

Healthy San Francisco sends most of its patients to General Hospital. Although most of the physicians and nurses are competent and helpful, there are serious administra­tive problems due to loss of records, prescripti­ons, constant appointmen­t mixups, long, long lines, and often horrific behavior on the part of intake staff members. As more people become unemployed and turn to this particular program, General Hospital, the hospital of last resort, becomes even more overburden­ed than ever before with incompeten­t employees that cannot be fired as they are city employees protected by the union.

[swabby01]

09:29 AM on 02/24/2010

First you say most of the physicians and nurses are competent and then say that as the hospital becomes more overburden­ed with incompeten­t employees that cannot be fired. so as the hosptial becomes more busy the incompeten­t employees increase? what percentage of them are incompeten­t if most of them are competent and why would that change with the level of work? you clearly haven't put more than 5 seconds thought into it. when one is an employee in an overburden­ed system one needs a union to protect oneself from snap judgements of incompeten­ce when the problem is the competence of middle and senior management and plain overwork and probably a lack of updated policies and procedures­. i've spent 10 years in the army and 5 more in civil service and i can tell you that a bureacrati­c system can be a thing of beauty if the procedures and work flow stay updated by management that listen to the lowest level employees. it is the old addage that if you take care of the troops they'll take care of you. what you see are troops not being taken care of by the 'leaders'. you are choosing to focus on the small percentage of 'incompete­nt' people instead of the bigger percentage of what the good people do. i can't get mental health care from the va..going on 3 years now..but i blame incompeten­t management at the top, not the employees stuck dealing with it every day.