Millions of Americans receive health care benefits as a result of their employment by state, county and local governmental units. Nationally, it is estimated that about 60 percent of local government employers provide coverage for retiree health care for those under age 65; at the state level, the figure is even higher, approaching 75 percent. About half offer some form of continuing coverage after age 65.

Currently, in order to provide these health benefits for millions of active and retired public employees and their families, the public sector spends more than $12 billion annually. The cost to provide this essential health care protection is increasing at an unsustainable rate. In short, public sector employers - from the largest to the very smallest - are facing exactly the same challenge as America's corporations: how to provide increased access to healthcare, improved quality of care, managed and equitably distributed costs, and simplified administration and delivery of services.

Employer-provided health care coverage is seriously threatened by system-wide failures that require bold and meaningful action by Congress and the Federal government. Yet, all too frequently, public sector health care purchasers find themselves without a voice when critical health policy decisions are considered.

The Public Sector Healthcare Roundtable is a relatively new national coalition of public sector health care purchasers organized in the summer of 2005 whose goal is to insure that the interests of the public sector are properly represented during the formulation and debate of Federal health care reform initiatives. The Roundtable is a non-partisan, member-directed grassroots coalition committed to giving public employers a voice in this critical national debate and to insuring that the public sector isn't ignored in any Federal response. Our members range from the nation's third largest purchaser covering 1.2 million lives to small cities covering 100 or fewer lives.

For example, during the development of the Medicare Part D program, early drafts of the legislation failed to extend the drug subsidy to public sector healthcare purchasers. Fortunately, this "oversight" was identified and corrected in the final version adopted by Congress and signed into law. Furthermore, although the public sector's problems are widely shared by private sector employers, solutions that work for corporate America may offer no assistance to governmental purchasers. For example, employer tax credits are of little use when the employer is not a taxpayer.

The Roundtable will therefore identify and advocate on behalf of the unique needs of the public sector in the national healthcare policy debate.

For more information, please visit www.healthcareroundtable.net.