Low-Cost Lessons from Grand Junction, Colorado

Abstract

In August 2009, President Barack Obama traveled to Grand Junction, Colorado, touting that community's health care system as a model for the provision of low-cost, high-quality care. According to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, average per capita Medicare spending in Grand Junction was $6,599 in 2007 — 24% lower than the national average and 60% below high-cost Miami. In 2005, Grand Junction had only 60% as many coronary-artery bypass surgeries in its Medicare population as the national average, 55% as many inpatient coronary angiography procedures, and 61% as many inpatient days during the last 2 years of life. Moreover, . . .